


The Last Girls

by Nilozot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Adolescent Sexuality, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Castration, Forced Feminization, Forced Pregnancy (female), Gender Issues, Genderbending, Human Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Medical Procedures, Misogyny, Stockholm Syndrome, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:19:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilozot/pseuds/Nilozot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been eight years since all the women were lost to the Plague. Eight years since young Dean and Sam's mother disappeared, like every mother. Eight years without wives or daughters or sisters; eight years without any children being born. Eight years of destruction, social chaos and economic free fall, and an open door for the New Federal government to restore order. </p><p>Eight years is a long time for a grieving nation to get creative about its population imbalance problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SPNkink-meme prompt found here: http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/95042.html?thread=37007426#t37007426
> 
> So, apparently I still feel like beating up on young Dean. This one will have a (mostly) happy ending, though. Dean's twelve at the beginning of this fic and Cas is thirteen. Please note and heed the tags.

New day, new school. The fourth one this year, and Dean knew even bookish little Sammy was sick of it. People just didn't move anymore, not with kids, and the townsmen in this new two-bit hole in the wall eyed them with pity and suspicion. Not that there was actual cause for extra pity. Mother dead, like everyone's else's. Dad just looking for work in the crashed economy, nothing weird about that either.

Except here at school, where this new principal was eying them like fresh meat. At least somebody appreciated them, maybe they needed fresh blood or a bump in test scores or something. Well, Sammy would be a big help on the latter. In any case, here they were, dumped into another dowdy administrative office, and Dad didn't even bother to go in with them this time.

“So, Sam and Dean, right? Hold out your arms, please.” The principal was a skinny man with gray temples and a frayed sports jacket, and still wore a wedding band. That usually just meant he had living sons to take care of, nowadays. He scanned Sam and Dean's RFID chips, and their genetic and S-PAT test scores popped up on his screen from the New Federal database. His eyes widened as he glanced over Sam's results, just like at the last two schools.

The chips' contents were supposed to be confidential, but Dean knew all about what was on them. Dad had gone ballistic when they'd first been chipped, all the way back in Louisville in the fall. That had been Dean's first Selection, although he didn't know what it was at the time. Every kid had been lined up to be seen by these guys with white lab coats and dulled eyes and the hunking whirring machine on wheels. You had to put your arm in a sleeve in the machine, and first it poked you to read your blood – viral load and genetic status, Dad found out later – and then injected the brand new permanent ID chip under your skin.

Only later, after every boy had been tested, did a whole batch of them disappear. Only then did Dean understand what the Selection was. They were weeding out the weak ones, those with genetic defects, or susceptibility to the Plague, or the kids that were just plain stupid and useless. Motivation enough to fill out all those little bubbles correctly come testing time. And even Dad, who had raged on and on about how he couldn't believe the townsmen went along with it after they had lost so many children already, wouldn't tell Dean what happened to the kids that were culled.

They moved on from Louisville soon after that, but not before Dad had bribed someone to tell him what was on Sam and Dean's chips. Because Dad wouldn't risk enrolling them in another school, NF law against homeschooling or no, unless he knew for sure they would never be Selected. Turned out to be a baseless fear, because both of them were listed as genetic Class I breeders, the highest level. Dean asked Dad if that meant they'd be given wives someday, and Dad had smacked him upside the head and told him no, wives were people you chose to make a family with, not cows handed out by the government. Probably they'd just have to donate some sperm when they were older, to help repopulate the country with resistant future generations. Dean never got up the nerve to ask if Dad ever donated sperm.

Dean always thought it was weird they both were Class I, because it meant they were highly resistant to the Plague, and yet Mom had died anyway. Maybe she hadn't died as fast as the others, Dean couldn't remember. One day there existed mothers and wives and sisters, just a normal part of the world, and the next everyone had been cooped up in their houses trying to avoid the terrifying virus. But it didn't work. Grandma died, cousin Jo died, all the little girls in the neighborhood vanished. Mom was gone, and at some point Aunt Ellen too. A lot of the boy babies and old men too, which is why Sammy's classes were always so small. And a bunch of other stuff happened, like all the governments collapsing and people rioting and there wasn't much food, and Dean didn't start school when he was supposed to because they were all closed. Then the army took over, and the New Federal government spread out, at least in the northeast and midwest. Dad talked about going over the border to Texas or Oregon someday, but they never did.

In any case, the upshot was that Dean and Sam were safe from future Selections, which still were rolling out on an expanding basis through the country. Dean had already sat through two more, with a stone face and pit in his stomach, wondering which kids would disappear. Their fathers never seemed to get any warning.

The principal at this new school scrolled through their S-PAT test scores, which had been added into the database months ago. “So, Sam, your academic achievement scores are … quite excellent.”

Sammy, who really could be an annoying little bastard, crossed his arms and gave the principal his most bored look. “I know what the 99th percentile means, Mr. Crouch. Does this school have a gifted program?”

“Erm, no, we don't have the student population to support that.” _Podunk_ town, it really was. “We can put you into fourth grade instead of third, and I'm sure Mr. Barnes can give you some supplemental reading to match your, uh, demonstrative grade level.”

Dean rolled his eyes while Sam leaned back, seemingly satisfied for the moment. Sometimes Dean wished they'd just go ahead and stick the shrimp in the sixth grade with him, right on next to his big protective brother. Then the fun would _really_ begin.

“And Dean, it says here you have superior fine and gross motor skills. Perhaps you'd be interested in our vocational apprentice program, where we pair up interested young men with adults to complete projects for the good of the community.” He rattled that off in one breath, obviously memorized. They probably offered this slave labor deal to every dumb kid in town, to keep them busy. Sometimes the news went on and on about that topic, the supposed threat of packs of feral motherless boys running around causing trouble. Seemed a bit overblown to Dean; like the dads couldn't whup their sons' asses if they got out of line?

“Sure, man, whatever.” Truthfully, whatever the other kids were doing was fine with Dean. Maybe they'd let him fix a car or paint shit or drive a tractor or something. Not like they'd be at this school much longer, odds were, and it was better than hanging out in a dumpy rental throwing spitballs at the walls.

“Good, good.” The guy stared at them a couple of seconds while tapping on the desk, then seemed to jump out of it. “I'll show you to your respective classrooms. Welcome to Peyettsville, boys.”

Something about the principal rubbed Dean the wrong way. Maybe it was his smile, fake and plastic. But a lot of school personnel had that bombed-with-whiskey look, considering they were all going to be out of a job within a few short childless years. This guy struck Dean as especially smarmy, and he vowed to warn Sam later never to be alone with him in his office. Sometimes Sammy, despite his brain, was little-kid naive on these matters, that the ones with wedding bands could be the horniest and loneliest, no matter how much old real-fem porn streamed on TV. Sometimes Sam really did need some protection.

Welcome to Peyettsville. Right.

 

* * * * *

 

They dropped Sam off in the paltry fourth grade class, kid number seventeen. The school was barely at a quarter of capacity, with the bulk of the kids in fifth and sixth. It got smaller every year, of course, since there were no younger kids coming up the line. Supposedly in the central cities, they had figured out a way to grow babies in labs, so the human race wouldn't die out. In these obscure rural parts of the country, though, Dean hadn't seen a baby in years.

The principal ushered Dean into his classroom without much introduction. Dean couldn't help noticing the guy was still staring at him all the way down the hall, and bolted into his new class without any encouragement. Then, not five minutes later, Crouch's face leered at him through the slim window in the door, thumbing in Dean's direction to some other guy out in the hall. Dean's teacher didn't seem to notice.

It wasn't right. Something was not right.

Dean held his breath after the faces disappeared from the door. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. Then he shot his hand up in the air. “Mr. Brown? Mr. Brown! I've got to go to the bathroom!”

The new teacher frowned at the rude interruption as Dean fake-squirmed in his seat. “You just got here, Mr. Winchester. Why didn't you go a minute ago?”

“I was nervous. Sorry. Really got to go.”

Mr. Brown gave him an annoyed head jerk towards the door, and Dean dashed out. The principal was thankfully no longer in the hall, so Dean crept down past the occupied classrooms towards the central offices. His first instinct was to grab Sammy and run, but Dad would tan both their hides for ditching school and calling attention to themselves on nothing more than a _weird feeling._ And maybe it was true he was just being paranoid, so Dean needed proof.

The school was one of those ancient ones from the previous century, flat and sprawling with tons of fold-out windows, and basically crap security despite all the pre-Plague shootings and riots after. Dean found a window with a broken frame in the first empty classroom he encountered, and crawled out and ducked down to the Crouch's office from the outside. It was May and already hot in Ohio, so the windows were conveniently cracked open.

“… look Ben, I know your fucking desperate, but this is insane. That younger kid is only _nine._ They'll catch you and toss half the school on that bus as retribution.”

“I don't think so. The Feds aren't going to give a shit as long as they get fifteen warm bodies without any resistance. We're getting back ten faux-fems and another _twenty_ infant real-fems over the next three years. Decent deal.”

“They're class I breeders for fuck's sake! You don't think that's going to be noticed at some point? Do you know what they do to the kids at those centers? You'll be taking them out of the gene pool forever.”

“What am I supposed to do here, give up Roy Thompsen's son 'cause the boy's nearsighted and can't add for shit? The man lost three daughters and his wife! Give up _my_ son in favor for some drifter's smart asses who happened to win the genetic lottery? We protect out own here. Ah, here comes Jim, he'll deal with...”

Dean had heard enough. He crept away as quietly as he could, his heart pounding in his chest. His only thought was to get Sammy out of there, get the fuck to Dad, _run._

Dean made his way down the wing of the building to the outside of the fourth grade room. From underneath the popped-open windows he pushed up on the frames, trying to find another broken one that would swing wide enough to allow a kid to wiggle through.

Unfortunately his efforts did not go unnoticed.

“What the…?” the teacher said, goggling at some strange kid lurking in the bushes outside. He didn't beat around the bush in reaching for his classroom phone, and Sam leaped to his feet as he saw who was outside.

Dean, desperate, finally resorted to shouting through a window. “Sammy! They're Selecting us! Run! Go get Dad! Run, run now!” He rattled on the window, trying to tear it apart with his bare hands, but the old wood frame wouldn't budge.

To his credit, Sam didn't hesitate. Abandoning his precious books, he shot through the door just as Dean got a glimpse of a startled Crouch on the other side. With a tiny thrill of satisfaction Dean turned to run himself, get away across the field and backtrack in the nearby neighborhood, when someone grabbed him from behind and slammed his head forward into the window. At the last second Dean saw a flash of the distinctive gray-blue of the New Federal uniform, then everything went black.

* * * * *

Dean only partially recovered consciousness, and faded in and out for hours. The pain shrieked through his head, which had been smashed by a boulder, pulped, jackhammered. When he did open his eyes the light seemed to actually burn through his retinas, as if his battered brain was no longer capable of processing it except as an ocean of blind stimuli. He was vaguely aware that they had dug the chip out of his arm and replaced it with the bloody stub from some other kid, now saved from genetic leprosy by the precious stamp of Class I. Then they tossed him in the back of a school bus, his wrists duct-taped together to the head rest of the seat in front of him. Dean leaned forward on his hands as the bus began to lurch forward, willing the stabbing in his skull to stop, trying not to throw up.

The bus quickly filled with kids, some sniffling and sobbing from what Dean could hear over the rush of raw pain roaring through his head. A stop, two schools, thirty kids must be, and then the rough bumping of crappy country asphalt switched over to smooth interstate. Some shouting, a man not a boy, incoherent mush. He tried to open his eyes, see if Sam was on the bus; tried to yell, but it only came out as a course croak. He put all his energy into listening for his brother, and couldn't detect a thing. Sam was either unconscious too, or not on the bus.

Hours later, the thumping of heavy boots and a voice cut through Dean's disoriented agony.

“Well, what have we got hiding in the back? The little bitch that tried to run. Can't run now, can you, little girl?”

 _Girl?_ Dean couldn't think, couldn't focus. _Girl_ was hardly a term of insult; girls were either the sainted motherly creatures who had ascended to heaven, or the screaming banshees being fucked on TV. Dean had no other associations. True girls, little girls, didn't exist in his world.

But then he felt the guy lift up his shirt and run his dirty hands all over Dean's back, and Dean's brain suddenly clicked as to what was happening. _He_ was the one who was supposed to scream.

“You know where you're going, they're going to turn you into a whore? May as well start now, pretty. Get used to it.”

The man twisted Dean to one side on the seat and yanked down his pants and underwear. At that Dean did try to flail back, push off his aching wrists, kick backwards to get the guy in the balls, _something._ But he had hardly any room to maneuver, and the pathetic resistance just made the guy laugh.

“Oh, I do like a live one. You always have the tightest pussies. Should we test that out? See if your smooth little body has a nice cunt waiting for me? Tell me what you want, whore. I know you want it.”

Dean didn't emit a sound. He wanted to spit in the guy's face, but even that wasn't an option. The man jammed Dean's legs under him on the seat, exposing his ass.

“Quiet one, huh? Not gonna talk, even when I ask nicely? Let's see if _this_ makes you squeak, little mouse.”

With a brutal shove he pushed inside, and Dean had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming. It was worse than the jackhammer in his head, worse than breaking his arm when he was seven, worse than the eight stitches Dad sewed up on his leg with nothing more than a shot of bourbon. He was being ripped open, damaged beyond stitches or casts, and still refused to cry.

The guy snaked a hand up to the back of Dean's head, curling his fingers in his hair to unnecessarily hold him down even further. “Yeah, just like that, sweetheart. Such a tight pussy, made for my cock. You like that, don't you?”

With each grotesque word the man thrust harder. Each wave of pain magnified the last, until Dean sensed something vital rip. A gush of warm liquid fell over his legs and onto the seat, pooling on his clothes scrunched down by his ankles. Oddly enough the torturous headache immediately lessened, as if the blood were building up and needed release.

The guy continued to roughly jerk Dean's hair and murmur nonsensical obscenities – _how much do you love it? Your little pussy wants it so bad. Such a beautiful ass and cunt._ But then he began to speed up and grunt, just like in porn, and the small part of Dean's mind that was still engaged began to count down until he finished. At last the soldier gave one last neck-snapping yank, and roughly shoved Dean's forehead into his taped-up wrists. The blood dripped even more.

“There you go, pretty, was that so hard? Broken in. I'll let your hands free for good behavior, if you promise to sit here like a good little girl. Seat's a fucking mess, you need to clean that up.”

Dean managed to nod, without lifting his head up. All he wanted, paradoxically, was to survive, get away from his nauseating attacker, curl up in the corner, let the blood flow forever, and die. The man took that small sign as encouragement, and flipped open a pocket knife to cut away the duct tape. He didn't bother to help pull up Dean's pants.

Dean managed to get his clothes on despite his numb wrists. From what little he could see through blurry eyes, the other kids on the bus were dead silent, not a single one so much as glancing back to see how he was doing. He could hardly sit up without feeling like everything was being ripped anew, so he opted to curl up and lie down. What little blood he had left flowed back up to the injured head, and the pounding headache of a bruised brain forced him back to sleep.

 

* * * * *

Dean still could only hear disembodied voices when the bus mercifully stopped. His body no longer hurt, but was only cold, nothing but a wet crusty numbness from sitting in his own blood. Even listening was like hearing disembodied voices through cement walls, very far away. They injected him with something, and the voices expanded like a bullhorn even as his twitchy heart calmed. Every background beep and metal scrape and the sound of a squeaky cart rolling on linoleum was magnified.

“Jesus _Christ_ this one's a mess. Is it too much to ask that the girls not get raped on their very first day? Ease 'em into it, for fuck's sake. Get Danny in here to clean off the blood, I'm not even going to be able to visualize the rectal damage.”

“She's got quite the shiner too. Kid must have been a fighter. Concussion?”

A light exploded in Dean's eye, renewing the headache as if he had been struck yet again. He tried to squeeze his eyelids shut, but they wouldn't obey, as if they were attached to some other body.

“Aniscoric pupils. Left's a little tonic.”

“Well, _fuck._ How's her vitals, I don't want anyone dying on my table from a little telazol.”

“Eh, fair, blood pressure's 90/50, heart rate was 120 pre-injection, 90 a few minutes ago. Should we ship her to Saint V's for a CT?”

“I'm not blowing up my budget for that. She either lives or she doesn't. Half-vegetable, that's psych's problem. Put a note in her file for three days strict bed rest, Tylenol every six hours, soft diet. Maybe get one of the older girls to take care of her, make sure she eats and stays unmolested by the guards. Good for the ass, too. What's the kid's name again?”

“Uh… where's my scanner? Right. Aiden Crouch. Class III, cystic fibrosis carrier.”

 _No!_ Dean tried to shout, but his mouth was just as useless as the eyes. _Crouch is that asshole principal! I'm Dean Winchester! Class I!_

Someone was cutting off the crunchy remnants of his clothes, and now Dean would have given anything to scream, to move, to get their attention. _I'm not Aiden Crouch!_ But instead his arms and legs were stretched out and pinned in place. Vulnerable. Anyone could touch him now.

“How about Addie? I knew an Addie in college once, she's was a fighter too.”

“Addie it is. Thanks, Danny, lock her down tight in case she starts to come to. Edge of the stirrups, I need to do a through internal exam. So, who should we let play mommy? Girl's having a shitty day that's about to get shittier, least we can do is give her a nice little friend.”

“Isn't that ol' Nancy's job?”

“She'll just assign some petty jealous bitch. Look at this pretty face, even with the bruise. How about Hannah? Mika? No, wait, I know, Cassie.”

“Cas _ssiiiie._ God, what a tight little body. And she's quiet and sweet too. Perfect.”

“Great. Now that we've played matchmaker, are we going to do full intake or what?”

“Yeah. Can't let an intact male through the door, even if she is beat up. All righty then. Testicular volume 8, penis length 4.5 cm. Tanner III. Sparse course hair on scrotum, none on chest or underarms. Definitely hitting puberty, this one.”

 _Stop, stop, stop,_ Dean's brain shrieked. They were touching his dick, his chest. Jabbing his arm with another needle.

“You got all the baseline blood? How's her hormone levels look?”

“Yeah, we're good. Quick prick says her free T is 730, E2's coming in at 8. Normal for a Tanner III. Ideally we should take them at ten before they even hit Tanner II, but no, people balk. Nothing irreversible, though.”

“Height on record's only 154 cm. No way she's that short, kid must've had a growth spurt.”

 _I'M NOT THAT KID! Look at the record!_ Why didn't they bother to double check instead of trusting that goddamned chip? Dean was ready to weep, or yell, or beg. But nothing worked in his damnable body besides the headache.

“We'll get proper height and weight when she's conscious. For now I'll just say estimated body fat 15 percent, normal male pubertal distribution. BMI within normal limits. Facial symmetry: I give a nine. Course light brown hair, curl unknown on preliminary examination, green eyes, skin tone Caucasian type III with olive undertones. _Christ_ in six months this one'll be a gorgeous little thing.”

 _Why do they keep calling me a girl?_ some logical part of Dean's mind protested. Pretty? Gorgeous? Nobody used words like that for actual people. Your dog, maybe, or a really well-kept antique car. The  _pretty_ especially made him want to hurl something. He vowed to slash his own face before letting a man call him "pretty" again.

“All right, basic exam: Severe bruising on forehead and mild contusions on wrists. No evidence of injury on abdomen. Abdominal palpations all within normal limits. Eyesight to be tested after recovery from concussion. Teeth in good condition, second molars have erupted. Gag reflex...”

Something was jammed down the back of Dean's throat, and finally his body responded. He'd have been grateful to throw up at this point, _react_ instead of just taking the abuse, but even that refused to follow his command.

“…normal. Hey, pour some lidocaine down her throat while you're shooting up the arm, we may as well take out that reflex now. Ol' Nance will thank us for that; Addie here can at least start in on oral training, anal's going to be out for awhile.”

“Sure, in a sec. Let me get the groin area while you're up here.”

There was too much going on for Dean to follow: Something cold and wet applied down around his cock, followed by numbness; stabs in the arm; then a whole machine jammed into his mouth, mercilessly beeping somewhere south of his tonsils while he choked.

“She biting down on the neural torch. Think she's waking up. Give her a shot of Valium?”

“No more depressants with a brain injury, I'll just hurry. STI kit's already in the bag. Roll over the transducer, will you? Let's get this done and get the girl to bed.”

Something gelatinous and cold – why was everything so cold? – slid up into Dean's ass, and although it barely hurt compared to the rape, the violation of it caused Dean to tighten and attempt to jerk away. The doc rested a hand on Dean's hip in a benighted effort to calm him down. Dean would have bitten his fingers off if he could.

“Shh, honey, its almost over. Just a little more. Jack, I've got rectal trauma posteriorly, probe's also got an anal fissure in the same vicinity extending three centimeters. No evidence of old scarring or other trauma, so looks like she was a virgin. We'll repeat the ultrasound at her three day checkup, but I'd guess she'll need surgery.”

“Poor girl. Well, they can fix that while putting in the lube implants, right? Estradiol implant's on board, all we have left is the snip.”

At last Dean's mouth began to unfreeze, and he opened his eyes and tried to move his tongue through drooling quicksand. “Bo-oy. Not gu-ewl.” That last word ended up a bit mangled, but he thought they understood.

The doc looked faintly surprised at Dean's superhuman effort at communicating through the drugs. Then he leaned over and something tugged at the base of Dean's cock. A tightness, only a pinch.

“Not anymore,” the doc said, and when Dean raised his head enough to see what the fuck he meant, only then did he finally scream.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dean awoke to flickering fluorescents irritating his eyes, but the rest of him was buried under layers of sheets and blankets, and at last he felt warm. It seemed like every part of his body had been pulped; there was the omnipresent headache, of course, but also his arm, his eyeballs and everything in between his belly button and knees screamed at him too. Nausea too, like he was still on the bus. He moaned and rolled to one side, pulling his pillow out from under his head in order to cradle it against his stomach. It felt good to squeeze something, or possibly yell into or punch, which given the circumstances was a very real possibility.

He kicked something as he moved. Slowly Dean extricated himself from the pillow enough to see what was down near his feet. And there, sitting at the foot of the bed, back against the wall with her legs crossed and propped up on a chair, was a girl.

At least she looked like a girl. More like a girl than anyone Dean could remember seeing in person. But unlike the real-fem mother figures on old television shows, this one was _young._ She – he? – was wearing a slim skirt that ended just above the knees, gray tights, and a form-fitting turtleneck sweater. Her face looked a little too colorful to be real. Dean stared hard at her body, the shape of which was… decidedly not boyish. Round hips, wavy hair that apparently hadn't been shorn in months, _breasts._ How much of that was her actual body, and how much the artificial props of clothing? Did she still have a dick below that skirt? He couldn't tell.

The girl, sensing she was being stared at, glanced up from her book. “Oh, you're awake,” she said. The voice sounded like every other twelve-year-old's voice. Maybe that didn't change. Maybe only boys' voices changed.

Dean tried to sit up properly, whereupon he discovered that, one, both his head and stomach objected like they'd been run over by a truck; two, his butt was equally on fire at anything resembling sitting; and three, he wasn't wearing any clothes. With a moan he flopped back down onto his hugging pillow, and managed only a gargled “Hi” in response.

The girl tossed the book onto the bed and stretched over to offer her hand. “I'm Cassie,” she said. “They renamed you Addie. Do you remember that?”

Cassie. Oh yes, his assigned babysitter. Why did every goddamned girl name end in _–ie_ or _–a?_ Even the name had to be different?

“My name isn't Addie, it's Dean,” he gruffly muttered into the bedding. “It wasn't even Aiden to begin with, they fucking swapped out my chip to save some other kid. 'Cause I'm a nobody drifter's son.” Dean peeked out at Cassie's face to gauge her reaction. Nothing. “You don't believe me, do you?”

Her features softened into sympathy. “I believe you, Dean. It's happened before. But it won't do you any good to go around complaining about it. It's too late anyway, and the government doesn't like to be proven wrong. They might just decide to disappear you to get rid of the problem.” She got off the bed and walked up near his head, sitting on the floor to talk a little closer. Cross-legged, and the tights made her legs seem oddly smooth.

“Disappear me? Like that hasn't happened already? Maybe I'd rather be dead than _this.”_ Dean curled up even tighter, pulling his knees towards him as he gazed at the wall, his back towards the foreign creature. Behind him he could feel Cas's fingers grazing his hair. Like he used to do to Sammy sometimes when they both were sad. He should have been repulsed, but it was so gentle and noninvasive, it just felt nice.

“If you're trouble, they don't kill you, at least not directly. They send you over to Research instead. Nobody ever comes back from Research,” Cas said softly after a few moments. _“This_ isn't so bad in comparison. You had a bad first day, but you'll adjust. Everybody does.”

Dean snorted. “I'm not everybody. And I'm not gonna be a girl, no matter what parts they chop off.” He rolled over to face Cas, thinking. “Hey do you still have, you know…?”

Cas nodded. At least she didn't flinch at direct questions. “For now. I'm scheduled for vaginoplasty in three months. I'm, um, considered a good estrogen responder.”

Dean, who could only guess at what “vaginoplasty” meant, nevertheless made a mock-gagging noise. “How can you just let them do this to you?”

“I don't mind being a girl. It's special, and your purpose is to please other people. What's so bad about that?”

“I dunno, that you should get to live your own life the way you want to? That locking kids up and cutting them up, without asking them or even asking our dads, is wrong? That you're _not really a girl?”_

Cas stared him down without reproach or guilt. “I don't have a dad. And one thing they teach you here is, you can be a girl if you want to.”

“And if you don't? Because I didn't see it as optional when they strapped me down and chopped off my balls.”

Cas just sighed in defeat and slumped down against the ladder to the top bunk. “You should rest. You want your painkillers? Something to drink? You're supposed to stay in bed for the next two days.”

“Okay, sure.” Dean was pretty thirsty despite the queasiness, and – he didn't want to think about this one – had to pee. Would his dick even work enough to do that now? Surely it had to. Girls must pee too, right?

The warm orange juice Cas had standing by tasted divine, although he passed on the pills. Sure, she said they were only Tylenol, but after the previous day's drugging Dean wasn't taking any chances. The sugar alone revived him, although it didn't help the pee situation.

“So, your dad's gone too?” he asked, feeling a bit recovered.

Cas sat back down at the head of his bed, knees hugged to her chest. “They both died in the Plague. They sent me home from the hospital to die, too. I'm Class IV, that's why they Selected me, I assume.”

“Wow. I'm sorry.” Dean hadn't met many Class IVs. Most of them, by definition, were dead.

“It's okay. Everyone lost someone, I'm not so special. Maybe that's why I don't mind being a girl, though. It would be nice to belong to someone, have someone care specifically for you. In the group home I was just one kid in a crowd.”

Dean hardly knew what to say. Sure, Dad and Sammy were his family, but Dad always lugged them around like a spare trailer in tow. He often seemed distracted and depressed, as if losing his wife and sister and all the rest of their family had sucked all the joy out of his life. So Dean had often taken care of little Sammy, and…

Sam. _Shit._

“Listen, Cas, have you seen all the new arrivals since yesterday?” Dean asked urgently, to Cas's bewildered look.

“I think so? I've been in here with you all day, though.”

“Was there a little shrimp, like four foot six and hasn't hit puberty yet? Says his name is Sam?”

“I'll ask around, but I don't think so. The little ones they sneak in sometimes, people are usually protective of them. Even the teachers. Your family?”

“Little brother. That evil bastard Crouch talked about Selecting him too. Guess he got away to Dad.” Dean lay on his back, focused on the springs of the top bunk above him. Then he began to wriggle, for he _really_ needed to pee.

“I need some clothes, Cas. Gotta go to the bathroom. What have you got around here that isn't a miniskirt?”

“Well, you're not supposed to get up, so I was instructed to let you use this bedpan...”

“What! Fuck no, Cas, I'm not that broken. Help me or not, but I'm guessing my buff ass walking down the hall would not be approved.”

So Cas did manage to find something in a storage room – a shiny pink robe that Dean side-eyed – and helped him up. Immediately upon standing Dean felt a wave of wooziness, and had to lean against the bunk beds to avoid stumbling or vomiting all over the room.

“Just a sec, I, uh, feel weird. Guess they did a number on my head.”

Cas rested a hand on his arm to steady him, patient. “Could be the estrogen. Makes a lot of us feel nauseous at first. Maybe takes a couple of weeks to get used to.”

“Estra-wha-sitt?” What was with this kid and the nerdtastic vocabulary?

“Estrogen. You know, the female hormone.” She pointed to the Dean's aching left arm. He cupped it over the thin sleeve, feeling the faint lump below his skin.

“Right.” Truthfully he didn't know anything about how girls worked. They didn't teach sex at school – why bother, when there was only masturbation and porn, and schools certainly didn't want to tackle the delicate subject of guys with guys. Dean knew girls didn't have a dick, and did have an extra hole. And breasts, which were for men to like but also had something to do with babies, which was pretty weird when you thought about it. And presumably they had some other kind of baby-making equipment, although he was fuzzy on gory details. Also girls had some kind of aversion to haircuts and sometimes pants, both of which seemed impractical as hell, because who wants to brush their hair? Thus endeth Dean Winchester's knowledge of female biology.

“You're tired. Come on,” Cas said. Together they hobbled out of the small dormitory room and out into the hallway. The hall was lined with old linoleum tile and featured even more windows, high up and emitting the flat orange of late afternoon sun. The windows overlooked not the ground, directly, but another plain grim building, and nothing but more gray structures in the distance. They were at least on the second floor, in what appeared to be a large city school. A re-purposed high school, maybe.

Leaning on Cas but getting more sure on his feet with each step, Dean shuffled past a couple more dorm-type rooms before hitting the bathroom. Inside it turned out to be not only toilets but also cement shower stalls without doors. Dean gazed with longing at the sterile empty room, imagining the hot water blasting all the horrors of his body away.

“Can I take a shower? Like, can you find me a towel or something? That's not against the rules, is it?”

Cas looked around uneasily, as if she were afraid to leave him alone for even a second. But after a few moment's hesitation, she gave in. “Yes. Stay in the toilet stall while I get it.”

Her furtive manner gave Dean the urge to run even more, even though Cas was hardly a brutal captor. In fact, he couldn't tell if Cas was trying to prevent him from running, or protect him from threats yet unseen. But he shelved the brilliant idea to escape for another day. He needed to get to know the lay of the land – where he was, the design of the building, its security, ways people were moving in and out, the surrounding area – before he could think seriously about getting out. Not to mention, able to walk right on his own.

Peeing worked, a relief in more ways than one, so made his way over to the furthest shower stall and braced himself against the wall. The hot water felt like a scouring brush on his head and back, and he kept turning it up, hotter and hotter, until the knob refused to budge. Only after he'd let the water practically boil and sterilize his skin did Dean dare inspect the damage to his wrecked body. It didn't look like much, just parts gone and a few stitches. Such a little thing, to ruin his life. Now apparently he'd never grow up to be a man, but would somehow be transformed into a soft, short child-like monster for the real men to fuck.

The thing in his arm didn't even have a stitch, but Dean could feel the slight seam where they had injected the tube of poison in. On impulse he dug at it with his fingernails, picking open the glue and making it bleed, as the water washed it all away. With some painful working of the tube under the skin, he moved the edge of it to the hole, just enough to rip it out. Then with a little thrill of glee he dropped it down the drain. Almost immediately the nausea stopped, and even though it was probably all in his head, Dean felt immensely better.

“Dean? I brought the towel. Are you doing all right?” Cas had come back, and didn't seem like a jailer at all. Kid was a little weird, but okay.

“Yeah, Cas, fine. Shower's good.” He shut it off, and Cas came out from around the corner to hand him the towel. Her eyes widened as she saw the oozing arm, but she didn't say a word as he dried off and redressed himself in the robe.

“Dean?” she asked. “Why do you keep calling me Cas?”

“I don't like Cassie,” Dean told her bluntly. “What was your name before, anyway?”

“Before was before. It doesn't matter. I'm a girl now.”

“Is that really how you think of yourself? Do you want me to think of you as a girl too?” Honestly he had already assimilated her as a girl in his mind, even if the whole dick thing was hard to reconcile. Weird how easy that was, after most of a lifetime interacting only with boys.

Cas nodded slowly, as if still a tiny bit unsure. “If you want.”

Dean shrugged in response. The whole situation was too surreal for him to process. Live and let live. Besides, she wasn't too bad looking that way. Even… kind of… nope, he couldn't bring himself use the p-word, even privately. “Okay. But I'm still a boy.”

“I wish you luck with that. But it's nice to see someone try.”

* * * * *

Dean was feeling good enough after the shower to walk down the hall and scope out the place a bit. Cas confirmed that they were on the third floor of a four story building, that there were multiple other buildings in an enclosed military compound, and that the whole thing was located in a suburb of Pittsburgh. Dean wondered if the locals knew what went on in here, or if they cared. Maybe the townsmen received free sex in exchange for their silence. A horrifying thought, but also a potential way out, to file away for later.

One of the first classrooms beyond the dorms was in session, and Cas whispered that it was the new arrivals – his cohort from the bus, receiving their first full day of instruction. Dean stopped to watch, wondering what sort of “school” he had missed. To his shock, the teacher appeared to be an older woman.

“Is she a real-fem?” he hissed to Cas, as they peered in through the slim window in the door.

“They really don't like that term here,” Cas whispered back.

“Fine, whatever, _born female?_ ”

“Miss Nancy? I believe so, yes.”

“So some of the them survived the Plague,” Dean murmured, more to himself than Cas. But she shot him a surprised look nonetheless.

“You've never seen the survivors? Of course there are some. The Class I's.”

“I'm from the boonies, dude, there are no women there. Not that come out in public.”

The door to the classroom suddenly opened, and a booming voice rang out. “You two chatty girls want to join us? Since you are rude enough to interrupt us, you can come in and observe the whole thing. You too, Cassie. Maybe I'll want a model.”

Dean, dressed in nothing but the oversized flimsy robe, forced his inflamed butt to sit down at an old-fashioned hardwood desk. Although to be fair, all the other kids were wearing ill-fitting dresses with garish flower prints, so the robe didn't stand out to the degree a random observer might expect. The teacher may have been a woman, but it was obvious she was a hard-ass, and if Dean knew anything it was how to read teachers for potential disobedience. Then he focused his eyes on the topic of the lesson, as evidenced by all the charts and diagrams up front, and officially wanted to sink down into the floor and die of embarrassment.

“So as I was saying before the class was disturbed, one of the ways to approximate vaginal intercourse is through anal intercourse. This is an infinitely inferior method, of course, because unlike the vagina the anal sphincter muscles are not designed for sexual intercourse. Many of you will have the honor of gaining reconstructed vaginas before graduation, but in the meanwhile, with proper training, anal is an adequate substitute.”

A kid tentatively raised his hand. “What about, um, the blood, Miss Nancy? Doesn't it hurt you?” That boy didn't budge his gaze, but several others gave Dean nervous side glances. Dean realized every damn kid in the room besides Cas had witnessed what happened on the bus. They had sat there, and fucking listened, and done nothing.

Miss Nancy pretended not to notice the subcurrent in the room. “No, anal is harmless.” As the class gave her an incredulous look as one, she added, “With lubrication gland implants and proper preparation, of course. It is your responsibility to take care of your bodies, think ahead and prepare yourself to address any of your partner's needs. Always prepare.”

His hands shaking, Dean kicked the desk in his rush to stand up. He shouted at the teacher, “Why is it only _our_ job to think ahead? Shouldn't the fucking _men_ think about their partners before they fuck them?”

Miss Nancy didn't blink at the outburst, but only coldly stared him down. “You're known as Addie, correct?”

“No. It's Dean.” Behind him he could feel Cas tugged urgently on the robe, her way of saying _sit the fuck down_ _you idiot_ _._ Dean stood his ground anyway.

“No, it's _Addie,”_ the teacher repeated back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You missed orientation this morning, Addie, so I will let it go this once, since Cassie obviously didn't feel it was necessary to fill you in on our most basic rules. You are to use your feminine name. You are to use the feminine pronouns. You will wear the clothes provided and conduct yourself as instructed. Failure to comply with any of the above, for yourself or others, even once more, will result in immediate punishment. And note, young lady, I have no issues tossing any little co-conspirators into isolation as well. You call yourself a friend? Then behave yourself.”

Dean crossed his arms, but with one more insistent tug from Cas, he silently sat down. He had another two days reprieve from this shit, and by extension so did Cas, best not to fuck it up right off the bat.

Miss Nancy turned her disdainful eye off him and back to the rest of the class. “To answer Addie's ever-so-polite question, of course men should care about their partners. But you can't expect them to be mind readers. In order to serve properly, you must put aside your petty concerns and think about their needs. Now, I was talking about preparation. I have a video demonstrating the steps for daily care...”

She signaled the lights to be dimmed and flicked on a video, the disgusting contents of which Dean couldn't bear to watch. Seething, he squirmed in the uncomfortable seat and dropped his head into his arms on the desktop. In the dark he felt the gentle caress of Cas's fingers on his own, squeezing his hand to sooth his distress.

“It'll be okay. I'll teach you what you really need to know,” Cas whispered in his ear.

 _We shouldn't have to learn anything. You're a kid, you shouldn't have that body and you shouldn't know what you know. This is all wrong, sick and wrong._ But he didn't have the enough fight in him to jump up and articulate his thoughts and go another round. Wasn't it clear enough that the universe was a cold unfair bitch when half of humanity died? Maybe this was some kind of horrific rebalancing, the karmic price for them to be the ones that lived.

In his despondency, Dean didn't lift his head for the rest of the class. But he clung to Cas's soft hand nonetheless.

  


* * * * *

  


Back in the dorm room, Dean moved to collapse on the bed. What little boost he'd gotten from the shower was long erased, and he let Cas help him yet again hobble down the hall, humiliation be damned. But before he could roll onto his side and bury his face under his pillow in blissful oblivion, Cas looked him up and down and spoke up.

“Do you think you can climb up to the top bunk?”

“Uhhh...” Dean was leaning on the ladder, and glanced up. “I guess. But what for? The sheets down below are already kind of gross. Sorry, man.”

“I'll take care of the bed. I just think you'd be safer on the top. Able to rest more, I mean.”

Dean shrugged and lugged his aching body up the ladder. Clean sheets would be nice, and he could see whoever was coming into the room easier from up there. He rolled towards the wall, bundled up burrito-style in the thin blanket. But then as Cas stripped the bed below him, he thought of something.

“Hey, Cas?” he mumbled.

“Yes, Dean?”

“Thanks for hanging out and helping me today.”

“I was given instructions to assist you in whatever you needed to recover.”

“I know. But you could have been a dick about it, and you weren't. So thanks.”

Cas gazed at him with those wide blue eyes, as if she didn't comprehend why on Earth she deserved thanks. “No problem. You were badly injured, it's the least I could do.”

Dean only grunted in response, and buried his face in the pillow. Why was the light so bright? The bottom bunk was better, but he was too exhausted to move.

Cas continued to ramble on, something about dinner. “I was told to give you soft foods, but they usually have soup. You should eat, you've only had juice all day. And your meds, if you feel pain.”

“'Kay.” Dean's head was indeed throbbing again, but he didn't have the energy to even swallow a pill. He felt rather than saw Cas carefully drape the extra blankets from the bottom bed over him. Dean's heavy eyelids drifted downwards, and he was asleep long before Cas returned.

* * * * *

Dean slept through dinner, and didn't stir a peep when the others kids trundled into the room for evening chatting and lights out. Late in the evening his body had finally had its fill, and he groggily awoke in the dim room to a jostling of the bed. A creaking, familiar in its rhythm. Dean's eyes snapped open. Ignoring the now-familiar searing of his brain, he flopped his face over the side to see if – hope beyond hope – Cas was just an ordinary boy after all and jacking off.

She wasn't.

Even though the distant nightlights were only producing enough illumination to see shadows, Dean could make out Cas's lithe frame smothered by a much larger body, jerking into her. Cas was on her stomach with some kind of nightshirt scrunched up above her waist, a bare leg visible. She had her head turned to one side, her eyes tightly closed, while her pale white palm gripped the sheets.

Dean didn't stop to think it through, about his injuries, about the consequences to both him and Cas for fighting back. With a rush of insight he realized that Cas had protected him by deliberately taking the bottom bunk. It was _his_ fault this was happening, _his_ fault she was getting hurt, _his_ fault Cas had to take some demented punishment for the both of them. If indeed it even was a punishment, maybe they came to rape her every night.

In a rage Dean jumped down practically on top of the two of them and started pounding on the guy's pasty uncovered ass. “Get off her! Get off! Don't touch her!”

The man flipped over in shock and Dean in his flailing managed to land a kick directly in the guy's exposed crotch. He fell off the bed with an _oompf_ as a confused Cas sat up and rearranged her clothes. Dean collapsed next to her, trembling, unable to expel the adrenaline out of his system.

“Why did you do that?” Cas asked softly. “You'll get us in trouble.”

“You were getting _fucked_ in place of me,” Dean hissed. “What was I supposed to do?”

“I know what to do, while you have an injury,” Cas said. “I wasn't hurt. I always prepare.” Her eyes were glassy and unfocused and bewildered, and Dean put his arms around her shoulders and clung to her. He wanted to rage more, scream, weep, rip something apart for what was being done to them. But all he could do was sit there with her, a few seconds comfort before the hammer came down.

The guy writhing on the floor eventually rammed his throbbing junk back in his pants and stood up. “Both of you sluts. With me. Now.”

Dean spent the last two days of his medical leave in isolation inside a stuffy closet, without light or bedding or food. He slept through most of it, and in some ways being left alone in the dark was a blissful relief.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: More girl and sex training.


	3. Chapter 3

 A burly guard flooded the closet with light, and Dean blinked almost in pain. The water supply he'd been given had almost ran out, and between that and the lack of food he was beginning to despair he'd have to force his way out, and probably fail. They said two days, but who knew if they lied? He couldn't tell time in the dark.

“You smell, girl,” the guard barked at him. “First things first, get up for a shower. You can clean this little shithole up later.”

There was no mention of food. Dean could smell, somewhere in the building, eggs and other greasy foods. Must be morning and breakfast. He weakly managed to stand, ignoring the rush of dizziness as the blood left his head.

“Where's Cas?” he asked. Dean had tapped and yelled through all the walls early on, in case they had put her in some kind of hole right near him. No luck.

“Not your concern, kid. Hurry it up, you only have twenty minutes until your appointment.” He threw a bundle of clothes at Dean, which turned out to be a long flower-print dress and a knit zip-up sweater. No underwear, which made Dean shudder. “Get decent for fuck's sake, I don't want to see _that_ ugly thing hanging out.”

His useless cock, Dean realized. Everyone here was crazy. Every man.

The guard prodded Dean down the hallway and practically pushed him inside the bathroom, a different one than Cas had shown him the previous day. He gave Dean and bit of a shove towards the door, but stopped himself.

“Ten minutes, girl. Don't make me go in there to drag your wet ass out.”

“You're not going to guard me every second?” Dean couldn't tell what he feared more, being watched in the shower by this guy or trapped alone in the bathroom with other students.

“It's the girls' restroom, for fuck's sake. God, you Plague kids have no sense of propriety.”

Dean filed that tidbit away for future consideration. He vaguely knew that males and females had kept separate bathrooms – the “Women” and “Men” signs were still displayed in restaurants and schools across the land – but within his memory no one paid any attention to it. Why give up perfectly good toilet space to the ghosts of the dead? But now the fact that the guards wouldn't enter the bathrooms seemed significant. It could be one place where he could have some privacy.

Like the other day, the shower seemed purifying for his soiled body. Dean lifted his head up and drank great gulps of the liquid to fill his shrunken belly. His brain still seemed to be operating on less than a gallon of gas, but at least he was alive, functioning, and no longer trapped in the senseless dark.

The guy yelled at him and pounded the door after what felt like only a couple of seconds. Dean hurried to dry off and throw on the ridiculous clothes, and ran out just as some new kids wandered in for the morning. Cas wasn't with them. With a pang of guilt, he hoped the kid was okay.

The guard prodded Dean down a couple of flights of stairs to an unfamiliar part of the building. Based on the windows, Dean thought he was on the ground floor, towards the back. He tried to keep a mental map of the place, figure out weak points, routes of escape. They entered an undecorated corridor filled with what Dean assumed were administrative offices, just like every principal's office he'd sat in for five years. It wasn't until they reached the door of their destination that he saw the small printed sign:

CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY

Dean didn't know what that last word meant but it sure as _hell_ wasn't any principal. His instinct was to run, make some sort of blind rush to a door, _any_ door. But the huge guard grabbed him by the shoulders before he even stepped back two feet.

“Uh-uh, missy. None of that now. Your appointment is in here.” The guy held his forearm up to the chip scanner next to the sign, while practically pinning Dean's neck in a headlock with the other arm. He forced Dean through what looked like a mad scientist's lab, filled with black lab benches and whirring machines. Then into a sparse, confined exam room round a corner, where the doctor was waiting.

“Addie. Uncooperative again, why am I not surprised?” He sighed and approached, pulling a small portable tray covered in syringes and Star Trek scanners behind him to just outside Dean's arm's reach. “Listen to me kid, very carefully. You haven't even enrolled in classes yet and you've already got a couple strikes against you. Now I can and will knock you out again if I have to,” – he gestured to the tray behind him – “but then that would be another strike. Or you can lie down quietly and let me do what I need to do.”

Even with the guard's arm around his neck, Dean snorted. “Yeah? What happens if I get too many strikes? I've already been raped, cut up, locked up in the crazy box and starved. So what are you going to do, kill me?”

The doc gave him a malevolent grin. “God, I sort of love you feisty ones. Really is a refreshing change from all the simpering yes-bitches we're constantly getting. No, dear, they won't kill you right away. R&D always needs fresh little bodies, and yours is just as valuable as your cocksucker lips and pretty green eyes.”

Dean thrashed in the guard's arms, willing to land himself another two days in the hole for the opportunity to rip this guy's balls off for uttering the word pretty. The doc appeared not to notice, and continued his rant.

“You like experimental hormones? How about tiny embryos attached to your gut while you're tied down to table and pumped full of immunosuppressants for the rest of your short existence? Fun stuff over in Building Two. Or, you can be a good little girl and let me run my tests, and I'll let you go upstairs for breakfast after this with the other good girls. I know you're hungry, Addie. Maybe you'll even find Cassie up there. Whaddya say?”

He cupped Dean's face for the last two words in horrible emphasis. Dean shirked back as well as he could against the muscular arm, but he knew he was defeated. What was the point is resisting when they could just knock his ass out and do whatever they wanted to his body?

Without waiting for an affirmative, the doctor picked up Dean's hand and jabbed a finger into one of his hand-held machines. A sharp spike stabbed his fingertip, and Dean could feel the warm welling of blood. Then the device beeped, and the doc bent over it, frowning.

“ _Less than five E2?”_ he hissed, grabbing Dean's arm and squeezing along its length. “Another fucking strike, girl.”

Only then did Dean remember the implant he'd so blithely dropped down the drain. He stared up at the doc's enraged face, unrepentant. “I'm not a girl. I don't want to be turned into a girl. And you can't make me,” he hissed back.

And the doctor somehow _laughed_ at that. “Seriously, little bitch? There's a hundred different ways I can turn you into a girl. I could schedule you for surgery tomorrow, inject fat in all the right places, and flip inside out what's left of that tiny little dick into a nice tight cunt. I'm not going to, because I'm not wasting my budget on a whore doomed to waste her ass on a few more rapes before she's shipped to Research. But I could.”

While he was talking, the doctor jerked his head towards the exam table, and without being told the guard obligingly dragged Dean over to be shackled. Dean bucked and kicked and screamed all the way, but the guy had over a hundred pounds on him, and had clearly dealt with flailing youngsters before. He pinned Dean down at chest level, never giving him an opportunity to get a foot or teeth in, and soon Dean found himself on his back with his arms cuffed above his head, legs spread apart and slightly elevated. The horrible dress slid up to his waist, exposing his crotch.

He wanted to cry, but opted to shriek with rage instead. For as he knew through some dimly noted cultural osmosis, only _girls_ fucking cried. And through it all, that bastard doctor kept jabbering on.

“Here's a biology lesson for you, sweetheart: Even if we did nothing, no E at all, you would still turn pretty damn girly. It would simply take longer. We took away testosterone before it had a chance to do much in the way of masculinisation, and now all that's left is a wee bit of estrogen being produced by the adrenal glands and fat cells, among other things. But that's enough. You'd still end up tall and squeaky-voiced and curvy in all the right places, not to mention your dainty little face.

“But, of course, I'm not going to just let you sit around for two or three years all for some goddamned breast nubs. Since you're proven to be an implant picker, we're going to go with another source of E, and thanks to R&D I've got a cornucopia of choices. There's good ol' oral pills, micronized powders, gels, suppositories, patches. But I'm not struggling with you and your goddamn meds every day, so we're going with the least reversible option. Injection.”

He held up an alarmingly large syringe filled with a white fluid and brandished it in front of Dean's face. Dean hollered and bucked against the restraints, but there was nothing he could do as the doctor slid the dress up to his rib cage. The needle burned as he was stabbed in the hip and the hateful medication slid inside.

“This isn't the best option, as I can't really control the dose. Once it's in, it's in, slowly absorbed by your body over a whole month. Fortunately for you, we can't make it _too_ high a dosage, or some of it gets metabolized into testosterone. And we don't want that, do we? Really a delicate balancing act, fucking with you kids' hormones.”

“I hate you,” spit out Dean. “I hate you, and if I ever get the chance, I'm coming back and chopping off your balls and dick before I stab you straight in the eye.”

The doctor laughed again. “Well, that depends on you leaving here in the first place, which isn't looking too likely, now is it? Only good obedient girls get to leave. Cassie'll probably be out of here within a month or two, if you don't fuck it up for her, you rotten apple. Now, while we've got you tied down in here, what else can we do to turn that blank body into a woman?”

He rummaged through a small fridge and came out with two more syringes, much smaller than the previous one. Dean's breath caught and he squeezed his eyes shut. He could still feel the doctor's cold hand travel up his abdomen to his chest, pulling the dress so far up that Dean's entire body was exposed. He lingered his fingers a little too long over the nipple, squeezing and pinching it in the chilly air so it perked up. And then with slow cruelty, he inserted one of the needles under the nipple.

Dean almost fainted from the unexpected pain. It felt like a knife slicing the thing right off, which Dean almost would have preferred.

“Newfangled progestin,” the doctor said, ignoring his screams once again. “Supposed to stimulate both the development of breast tissue and accumulation of fat, to make 'em nice and big.” He stopped talking for a few seconds, waiting for Dean to cease struggling and gasping, all while caressing the other nipple in the same obscene way. “Scientifically speaking, since we're still in the testing phase of this drug, I should only do one side and leave the other as its own control. But you really do have the potential to be an amazing looker, Addie, and it would be a shame to mutilate the chest. So I'm giving you this one last chance. Hold your breath through the pain now.”

He injected the other nipple in the same manner as the first, and this time Dean didn't scream or thrash, but just bit down on his lips until it bled. His head was starting to pound again, great dissociating waves of pressure and pain. Dean could sense his energy level crashing, the adrenaline-pushed rage and fear dissipating into his empty shrunken stomach. All he wanted to do now was endure, survive, and leave this room with all remaining body parts intact.

“Hey, now, don't pass out on me,” he could hear the doc saying, softer it seemed. Not yelling at him. “It's not that bad. Look, Addie, I know you hate me, and if I were you I'd hate me too. But you've got to find your moorings, and look at the bright side of things. It's really not the end of the world to be a girl.”

“You're crazy,” Dean slurred, his eyes still tightly shut. “Everyone here is totally crazy. Even Cas.”

“The world is full of men, Addie, why do you want to be one so much? A lonely future and another indistinct whiskered face in a crowd, that's what would have happened to you. Now you'll be loved and desired. Men will line up for miles to get a glimpse of your lovely body, by the time I'm done with it. God took away all the beautiful creatures, but we clever human beings will recreate them anew.”

 _Dad loves me. Sam loves me. Mom and Ellen loved me, even though they're dead. I don't need to become someone's fuck-toy to be loved._ But Dean was done arguing with with an insane person working for an insane system. Even if they tried to convince him otherwise, he knew _they_ were the crazy ones. All he dreamed of now was to leave. There had to be a way to get out, short of complete transformation into the whore they wanted.

The doc talked some more, and touched every part of Dean's body to finish up his exam. The flower print dress was not pulled back down, not until the very end. Dean didn't hear him or feel much more, even when that vile slimy thing was pushed inside him once again. He had to wonder if, once his mind fled his increasingly hated body, if it would ever return again.

* * * * *

In the end Dean did wake up, after they hooked up his veins to a bag that revived him. Sugar water or something. Burly guard then dragged him up two floors to the tail end of breakfast, whereupon he nibbled some buttery toast and sipped orange juice and tried not to throw it all up. Cas was still nowhere to be seen. He wanted to make his way back to the dorms and sleep all day, but then a teacher actually tracked him down, handed him a schedule and ordered his ass to class.

So, feeling disgusting and violated and nauseous and exhausted, he went.

The other kids were looking much more put together than that first day, he had to admit. Some of them were even wearing wigs, which combined with better-fitting clothes did make them remarkably resemble the mythical girls he'd seen on TV. Or cartoons maybe, because he'd never seen so many brightly colored clothes in person. Dean had never questioned the drab brown-blue-occasional flannel uniform that every male in his life adhered to. It was just what people wore.

And then the first lesson was on a subject called “make-up” and after three minutes Dean was convinced the whole garish color thing was an elaborate joke, just to fuck with their heads.

“Throughout the animal kingdom, color is often used to signal sexual desire. And we primates have some of the most advanced color vision in the animal kingdom, so it's unsurprising coloring of the face would influence human sexual attraction.”

Miss Nancy. That teacher really did love to lecture the newbies, Dean thought.

“Human males respond to signs of fertility and sexual availability, so cosmetics enhance nature's subtle signals. Darkening the eye makes you look more feminine, as does the lips. In born females, blood supply to the face increases during ovulation, so reddish lipstick and blush mimic this effect. Even skin tones and color on the cheeks also make you look healthy and vibrant. In addition to all that, cosmetics give a profound _cultural_ signal as well, that you feminine and proud of it, and that you are willing to do whatever it takes to please the male in your life.

“And here to give you individual tips, we have some our older ladies to give you their objective advice. _Do_ pay attention to the examples in your handouts, as the line between beautiful and clownish is thin.”

 _Not so thin,_ thought Dean. But then he saw the “older” girls trudge in, and all thoughts of snark were erased. For there was Cas, seemingly unharmed and alert and not at all as if she'd been trapped in a hole for two days. She didn't look at Dean, though, and his heart sank that maybe he'd scared off his only friend in this hellhole.

But then the teacher called for the kids to pair up, and Cas casually sauntered over as if they'd just met. When she finally looked Dean directly in the eye, however, her own eyes displayed nothing but concern.

“You look terrible,” Cas said under her breath. “How long did they keep you in the closet?” With deliberation she picked up the cosmetic tray to compare to his face, for show Dean hoped.

“Til this morning. Then they took me down to see Dr. Frankenstein, so today's just been peachy.”

“You mean Dr. Taylor in Endocrinology? He's not so bad. He just doesn't like … non-compliance. Much better of you go along. I take it you didn't.”

“I'm not poster boy for compliance. You saw me rip that arm-thing out. Wait, what are you doing?”

Cas had picked up a triangular sponge and was about to start smearing goop on Dean's face. “It's foundation. Dean, you've got to give in on something. It's just makeup, you can...” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “...wash it off later. Please, I don't want you to get in trouble again.”

“Me get in trouble,” Dean muttered. He let Cas wipe the stuff on his face without flinching away. The touch was gentle and ticklish, almost sensitive.

“Cas, how come you're not mad at me?” Dean blurted out. “Didn't I get _you_ into trouble? Where were you?”

“They had me …work more. To prove I'm still good. I'm used to it, not the end of the world. They say I'm leaving soon, once my surgery is scheduled. I'm not that sorry.” She put down the sponge and smudged up a tiny brush with a brownish color. “Your skin tone is evened out, I'm switching to highlighter and eyeliner. This is supposed to make your eyes pop out and look bigger. You have very pretty eyes.”

Somehow when Cas said the p-word, Dean didn't mind. It was so matter-of-fact coming out of her mouth, not leering or possessive. It didn't sound like she was trying to force him into some girl-shaped box, change him into something he's not.

Cas reached up towards his face, but at the last second Dean caught her wrist and leaned in to whisper barely above a breath into her ear. _“You don't have to keep doing this._ _We should both get out of here. We can do it if we work together.”_ Cas froze, then leaned away, her eyes betraying nothing.

“ _Later,”_ Cas murmured, her eyes fixated on the roaming teacher. _“Do you know the southwest stairwell, with the 'Hugs Not Drugs' poster?”_

Dean nodded.

“ _Meet me there at eight o'clock,”_ Cas whispered. The teacher was roaming closer, so then she softly vocalized, “Close your eyes.”

Dean's eyelids drifted down. Cas' strokes were feather-light and skillful, exactly as if she were an artist and Dean's face her canvas. It wasn't just the eyelids, either, but the eyebrow and whole socket too. Nice to rest his eyes for a second, and trust in someone else.

“Okay, now blush. This puts color back on your cheeks so you look healthy. Um, healthier.”

 _Thanks, Cas,_ Dean thought, but all he said was, “So you take out all the color and then add it back in? Yeah, that makes sense. What's wrong with our original coloring?”

“This is supposed to enhance features that are associated with youth and fertility. Evolutionarily, I mean.”

“I'm twelve years old,” Dean complained. “How much younger am I supposed to look?”

“I think for us, it's supposed to make us look older. Like the women all the men remember. This is apparently what they did. Okay, lipstick is last. I don't think you need mascara, your eyelashes are already nice and long.”

“God, I'll never remember all this stupid stuff.”

“You don't have to wear a lot of makeup, I can show the minimum acceptable to go to class. It's like the dresses, you're required to wear something. Now be quiet, stop moving, and open your mouth a little bit.”

A thick paste spread across Dean's lips. Despite his tongue remaining firmly inside his mouth, he could still detect a waxy chemical taste. How were you supposed to eat with this stuff on? Wouldn't it wipe off, requiring you to put it on ten times a day to keep it looking good? A little part of Dean silently hated all the women of generations past for forcing him to do this. Then he felt guilty, for how could he blame all the people that died, including Mom? The men must have made them put this makeup shit on too. Hell, Nancy as much as admitted it was for the men.

“Okay, I'm done. You ready to see?”

“Nope, not at all.” Dean opened his eyes anyway, and jerked back in surprise from the bizarre image shining back at him in the mirror. Cas had indeed made him look older and healthier, just like the teen girls peering out from the television set. His eyes were shimmering green, almost exotic with that smoky gray stuff around them, and his familiar nose freckles were replaced with porcelain-doll unblemished skin. But the whole effect was like some flip-world clone, so far off from the way he thought of himself that he shrank back in instant horror.

“Cassie, excellent job as usual.” Miss Nancy beamed over them, and Dean gripped Cas's arm, resisting the urge to smear the gunk off his face. “Addie, I hope you were taking notes. Mascara would make it really phenomenal, but otherwise well done. Plus ten minutes.”

Cas held her arm up as the teacher ran a scanner over her wrist chip, then asked, “Can she have ten minutes too? So I can, uh, show her the rewards for behaving well.”

Miss Nancy appraised Dean with that well-worn teacher-expression that indicated she expected to get something in return for her benevolence. “Perhaps. How do you like wearing make-up, Addie?” She plucked the mirror off the desk and shoved it in front of his face.

Dean used every ounce of willpower to look at himself for longer than a nanosecond. It was like little kid make-believe, he decided, pretending to be someone else. “Ilookpretty,” he mumbled, spitting the rushed words out.

“Good. Ten minutes for you too, Addie. Let me have your arm.”

When she moved on to the next group, Dean leaned over. “What's our reward? Ten minutes of what?”

“Video game time. There's also TV in the rec room, that's free, but you need some minutes on the chip before you're allowed in the room at all.”

“Is that what you're gonna show me at eight?”

But Cas just shook her head. “What's your schedule for the rest of the day?”

Dean wordlessly handed her the piece of paper pressed into his hand earlier in the day. _Cosmetics. Composure & Aural Speech. __Gender_ _: Theory and History._ _Lunch._ _Cooking I:_ _Breakfast_ _. Fellatio. Homemaking Basics. Free time._ He didn't even know what half this stuff entailed, and the other half he could only guess why. Cooking, really? Like men had starved for the past eight years without women around to feed them?

Cas handed back the schedule with a worried look. “I can't help you this afternoon, Dean, I have to work in Building Three. Promise me you'll come at eight. No matter what, _promise.”_

“Okay, okay, I promise. What's the big deal?”

“Just… try not to get in trouble while I'm gone. You might have to do things you don't like. Okay? You promised. Eight o'clock.”

“I'll be there, Cas. I won't let you down.”

* * * * *

 _Composure & Aural Speech _turned out to be a lesson on how to walk in the most ridiculous shoes Dean had ever seen. They were sort of like boots, if the boot heel had been whittled away to flimsy sticks. The ankle support was gone too – all right, there wasn't much in common with a boot, except that it was high off the ground. The things were supposed to contort the leg muscles into a sexually attractive configuration. Or maybe they just had a preference for tall girls, Dean was a little unclear. He had an alternate theory, however: The shoes were designed to hobble the wearer so they couldn't run away. Kind of like some of the skinny skirts Dean had seen Cas and other older kids wearing, which made certain body parts more “beautiful” but also severely limited range of movement. Dean was getting it now; they – girls past and present – were prey, and many of the customs they were being taught restrained or controlled them in some way, to make them easier to catch.

 _Gender Theory_ only confirmed Dean's musings. The class was taught by a bored young man in a goatee, who blandly explained how in all of human history, every stable civilization had male and female roles to complement each other. Decadent societies that disobeyed these self-evident laws of nature were punished by the Almighty, the teacher told them, and that's why the women died. In the old nation they had rebelled against the natural order of things, and convinced the men through their wily charms to go along with it, and the whole world had crashed. Now it was incumbent on the new generation to faithfully restore the old sexual roles, in order to restore the grace of God.

Even a little kid like Dean, born and raised in the sticks, could see through that self-serving bullshit.

The problem was that Dean, like every other surviving boy, lived in a world that functioned perfectly well without women. Sure, a lot of the older men were sad and depressed, and there was plenty of lonely alcoholism. That was to be expected among people who lost so much – their spouses and children and family member after family member. The older generation remembered them, and would grieve for the rest of their lives. But the world still spun, and all of the things that were supposedly “women's roles” still managed to get done – cooking and cleaning and organizing and shopping, caring for the sick and taking care of the few boys that were left. Even sex, although the men didn't talk about that with younger kids much.

About the only thing men couldn't do was bear babies, and Dean couldn't see how that one difference should magically make women servants to the men. The teacher claimed that estrogen, the baby-making female hormone, made girls naturally submissive, less intelligent, and less aggressive and more caring. Females were emotional, males logical. Men were the biological leaders, women the followers. Males had high sex drives, females natural instincts to fulfill those needs. Dean couldn't bring himself to believe it, although the teacher made a hard case. From what Dean could remember, Mom wasn't a stupid dog that wagged her tail and followed commands, and definitely Aunt Ellen wasn't. And what about Cas, who had been on estrogen for months and was still super smart?

Throughout the class, Dean itched to ask the obvious: If the differences between males and females were these vast, innate, biological things, how could they turn boys into girls with a straight face? Maybe God, if he existed at all, was sending the message that there shouldn't be two sexes at all. But Dean remembered his promise to Cas not to make trouble, and kept his mouth shut.

* * * * *

Although his nausea was back in full force, Dean managed to make it through both lunch and his cooking class (“Eggs: A Dozen Different Ways”) without throwing up, falling asleep, or mouthing off to the wrong people. He even got ten more minutes for his French toast, which he'd made a thousand times for little Sammy over the crappy electric griddle they hauled from apartment to apartment. In the cafeteria he kept to himself, just like at a dozen new schools before, and the other kids had the good sense to give the troublemaker a wide berth.

By his fifth class of the day Dean was dragging his butt, not only exhausted but yet again in pain: Headache creeping down between his eyes, ass objecting to all the sitting, burning itches in his hip and chest where that bastard doctor had stabbed him. Only two more lectures to pry his eyes open through, and he'd be free to blast his body with hot water all over again and nap until eight. This class was something called “Fellatio,” which sounded like a fancy Italian-restaurant dessert to Dean.

As soon as he entered the room, he knew it wasn't another cooking class. Because up front, in a series of plastic-covered armchairs, was a group of five young men. They were laughing and joking with the teacher, while all the kids in dresses were clustered in the back, looking terrified.

Dean inched his way sideways to the nearest kid. “I missed the first two days, what's this class about?” he asked in a low tone.

“Oral,” the kid practically choked out. “They, uh, told us about it on Tuesday, and showed videos yesterday. Today we're supposed to practice for real.”

“ _Fuck_ , really? Gross.” Dean knew what oral was – an endless stream of porn on TV took care of that little piece of sex ed – but the idea of actually letting another guy's dick in his mouth seemed utterly disgusting. What did the person doing it get out of it, anyway? At least with regular sex, it looked like both parties were supposed to have fun.

“All right, girls, everybody in and close the door. Thank you, Tori.” Miss Nancy yet again; that old lady would probably haunt Dean's dreams for the rest of his life. “So as you all know, today's the first day of practical education for oral sex. Exciting!”

Not one kid looked excited. In fact, Dean thought at least three people might actually break down and cry. Dean himself had to suppress every instinct to turn around and run out of the room, or just give in to his rollicking stomach and throw up.

“Since it's your first day, we do not have high expectations for the session. Today the goal is simply to get used to the taste and texture of a penis in your mouth, and receive feedback on what motions feel good to your recipient. Each of you will practice on three of our intrepid volunteers here.”

 _Oh my God,_ thought Dean. _I can't do it. No way am I doing it._

“The ground rules are: No hands, no teeth. The volunteers will not touch you this session, and you will not touch them except with your mouth. Use of teeth, even on accident, is immediate grounds for at least one day's isolation. Is everyone clear? Good. The first five up will be Malinda, Tori, Addie, Kaylee, and Aria. Everyone else will observe and critique until their turn.”

It took Dean a second to remember he was Addie. “Wait, what?” he burst out. “I wasn't even here for the instructional videos.”

“Minus ten minutes for talking out of turn, Addie. And I'm sure you'll muddle through. All I'm asking for is a little effort here.”

Dean realized she was testing him, to see if he'd disobey or fight back. Any excuse to toss him back in the closet, or out of the school altogether into the hands of the evil scientists.

He thought about running. He thought about Cas, to whom he'd promised to survive the day. He thought about the events of that same cruel morning, and being tied up to a bed and injected with mystery substances for weeks on end. And Dean realized that not only did he want to live and see Sam and Dad again, but that he could do this. Not only would it not kill him, it wouldn't even hurt him, not anything like what happened on the bus. The only thing at stake here was his pride and private disgust, and those two things had already been cast aside with the make-up and dress.

So Dean swallowed his revulsion and walked straight up to the dude right next to Miss Nancy. The guy wasn't even a little bit hard, which made Dean wonder if the situation was fucked up to him too. He didn't have his balls chopped off, though, so Dean wasn't about to feel sorry for him. To the leering approval of the teacher, he kneeled down, closed his eyes and leaned over to lick the just the tip of the cock. Salty sweat, it really was gross.

“Shouldn't you, like, take the whole thing in your mouth?” one of the other kids put in, and Dean realized he could _really_ do without the commentary.

“He's not even hard yet, I've got to warm him up,” Dean retorted. The guy's face flushed a little in embarrassment, and Dean locked eyes with him for a hard second of silent “fuck you” before proceeding.

Then he did pop the whole head of the soft dick in his mouth. From the back of his head Dean could sense every wide eye on him, and feel his status as the class hero rising with each second. God, this school was so fucked up _._ From there he debated whether to suck or wiggle his tongue, trying to imagine what would feel good on his own dick, were it ever to rise again. He opted to do a combination of both, flicking the head with the tip of his tongue while sucking his cheeks in. To Dean's surprise the guy gasped and the cock magically swelled up in his mouth.

“That's good, Addie,” Miss Nancy said. She didn't sound pissed off or sarcastic for once, and Dean took that as a sign he was doing genuinely well. “Try moving up and down the shaft more, taking it deeper in your mouth above the tongue.”

Dean tried to obey, and found to his surprise that he didn't gag on it. But it still unpleasantly felt as if his airway was being cut off, so he concentrated on bobbing up and down a few inches at the top, and sucking on the head. The guy's dick was oozing precum, which made him gag too, but Dean shoved the repugnance out of his mind, shoved out how much he hated cocks and hated sweaty men and hated everything in fucking existence including his own disgusting self. He sped up, betting against his own internal clock how fast he could get a young guy like this off. Faster than in porn, he was sure.

“That's enough for now, Addie. You don't have to make him come.” Her words cut through determined fog, and he let go and leaned away, nearly falling backwards onto his teacher. Dean blinked at the light, as the throbbing headache exploded behind his eyes. “You did surprisingly well for the first time. You can have your ten minutes back.”

The second time it was even easier to dissociate. Dean barely even registered sucking the other two guys off.

* * * * *

After the last class, Dean practically sterilized his skin and mouth in the shower and scrubbed his face raw to get the make-up off. Then he found the dorm and slept right through dinner. He awoke just as the sun was dimming through the windows in the hall, and groggily walked down to the staircase. To his relief, Cas was waiting for him, looking smartly put together as always.

“You okay, Dean?” she asked. “You still look awfully pale.”

“Need sleep,” muttered Dean. “Head hurts, but I'll live. Where are we going?”

“Up,” Cas said.

They climbed up the last flight of stairs to the top of the building. Dean thought they'd go up to the roof access, but Cas motioned that it was locked and lead them out onto the fourth floor. The area seemed to be abandoned at that time of evening, and they crept down the shadowed hall to an old chemistry lab. From there they clambered on top a black workbench up to a broken window onto a fire escape, and then climbed to the flat roof.

“Couldn't we just go down and get out of here?” Dean asked, huffing after going over the edge. A few days without food and movement was already making him soft.

“They have cameras monitoring the bottoms of the fire escapes and entrances, plus the whole compound is surrounded,” Cas said. “Look.”

Indeed, from their vantage point Dean could see that several blocks had been cordoned off by the military, ringing over a dozen buildings with double layers of barbed wire and armed security checkpoints.

“They really don't want us running away, do they?” Dean said with defeat. The place was even more of a prison than he expected. For some reason he had been picturing a regular city around the school, as if all you had to do was break out of the building and run for some obscure dark alleyway.

“Not really, Building One actually has the lowest security. I mean, people come out on the roof all the time, and they still haven't fixed the window. It's Three and Four they're protecting.”

“Three, isn't that the public rape shack where they make you work?” Again he regretted it as soon as he opened his mouth, and again Cas didn't blink at the repulsive words. As if taking shit from friends was completely to be expected.

“No, that's Building Six,” she said. “Three and Four are where they keep the mothers and babies, respectively. I've never been in Four, but in Three they like us trained girls to help out. Because, you know, we can't hurt the women like men sometimes do.” Cas waved towards two low sprawling buildings dead center in the camp. “Plus it helps to learn to be a girl by knowing some real-fems,” she added as an afterthought.

 _Real-fems? Mothers? Babies?_ Dean's brain seemed to throb in his skull. “Cas, what are you talking about?”

“I told you,” Cas said patiently. “The Class I breeders. This is one of the centers where new babies come from. They, um, haven't figured out how to an artificial womb yet.”

Class I's. There was an entire building filled with living women not a thousand feet away. Something clicked in Dean's mind, and he gripped Cas's arm in desperate excitement. “Cas, what exactly is the definition of a Class I?”

“Most of the women who survived carry two copies of the gene variants for resistance to the Plague. I think at least, they haven't let me study much biology since getting here.”

“Okay, but I mean what about boys? Can you be Class I if your mom died?”

“Sure, if she was sick or weak with something else, or pregnant at the time she caught the Plague. Virtually every pregnant woman died. But it would be much less likely. Why?” Her eyes widened as she figured it out. “Are you Class I? You didn't tell me that, Dean.”

“Yes! My brother Sam too! That's why they stole my chip. Oh my God, tell me, is there anyone named Mary over there? Mary Campbell Winchester!” He was shaking Cas by the shoulders now, and his friend took a step back. Dean let her go and dropped to the ground, hugging his knees and forcing himself not to sob. Beside him he could feel Cas sit down next to him and wrap an arm around his shoulder.

“There are a couple of Mary's, but it doesn't help,” she said softly into his ear. “They changed all of their names too, just like us. Because the past is supposed to be erased, and only the present matters.” Then, after a pause: “Don't you remember whether your mother died or not?”

“Not really,” choked Dean. “I was so little. One day she was there, the next day she wasn't. I don't even remember her being sick. But all the other moms were gone too, I just assumed the same thing took her.”

“Your Dad never told you anything?”

“Yeah, he's not the heart-to-heart type.” Dean wiped his eyes and leaned on Cas's shoulder. That was probably a girly thing to do, but it felt so comforting. Nothing else but Cas held any comfort in this horrible place. “You know, though, sometimes Dad talks about her, if he's been drinking a lot. And he never talked about her like she was dead. It's always 'Your mother does this or does that.' Not in the past.”

They sat together in silence for a few moments on the darkening rooftop. And then Dean spoke up. “What do I have to do, Cas, to get into that building? Tell me, I'll do anything.”

“You have to be good. Do everything exactly as you're told, no hesitation.”

“For how long?”

“Maybe a month? Honestly, it doesn't take very long to learn to be a girl, if you try.”

“Will you still be here in a month?” Dean asked.

“I think so,” Cas replied. “I'm very helpful around here, I think they like me? Anyway, they haven't scheduled my bottom surgery yet.”

Dean shuddered. “Yeah, no, we've got to get you out of here before that. I mean, you want to leave, right? You didn't bring me up here to tell me how much you love being a dickless sex slave, did you?”

“To be honest, I'm not sure. I could do without the sex part, but otherwise I don't mind being a girl. I have a place, a purpose. If I run away, I'm just another troubled boy.”

“Hey, being a trouble boy is awesome. Don't knock it.”

Cas smiled and rubbed her temple against his. “I promise, no matter what, I'll help you get into Building Three. Okay? I'll think about the rest.”

“Okay. Thanks. My ass hurts from sitting here, can we go down now?”

Cas didn't let him go. “Are you going to be able to handle … tonight? In the dorm? Someone will come, I'm sure. They'll want to see if you'll fight back again.” Dean couldn't think of anything to say, so Cas pressed on. “You can't do anything, Dean. I'll be all right. It's part of being a girl. Promise you won't do anything.”

Slowly, Dean nodded. And even though they could barely see the ladder and every part of Dean's body screamed for bed, he didn't want to go down. He could stay up on the chilly roof all night, forever, just the two of them, away from the evil in the world. But they couldn't delay the inevitable for long.

* * * * *

Cas was proven right. A few hours later they did come, two men Dean didn't recognize, and took turns holding her down while the other stood and stared at Dean. He pressed himself against the cold cement wall during the first assault, stifling his screams and jagged breath and hating himself more than ever for doing nothing. When the first guy was finished he stood up while the other went down, and grabbed Dean by the hair to drag him away from the wall.

“C'mere, princess. Your ass is off-limits but I hear that mouth has some natural talent.” Then he forcibly kissed Dean, the vilest act he could imagine. The guy's lips tasted like lipstick, and Dean wanted to shriek or throw up or bite his fucking tongue off, but made himself go limp instead.

The man laughed at his mute non-resistance, and tossed Dean back at the wall. “Not so brave now, are you, bitch? Finally learning to be a real girl.”

After they left, Dean climbed down off his bunk, and without saying a word slid into bed behind Cas's back. The sheets were horribly wet and slimy, but Dean ignored that. He wrapped his arms around hers, palmed her cold shaking hands and buried his face in her neck. Her body was limp and unyielding at first, but then the tension oozed out of her and she relaxed into his chest. As they both fell asleep together, Dean whispered something in her ear, which he would every night for the next month.

“ _You don't have to do this. Come with me.”_

 


	4. Chapter 4

After a month, Dean still made a terrible girl. Mouth-whore, yes, he was getting pretty good at that, popular even over in Building Six, but actually _looking_ like a girl was in some subtly defined way: hopeless. He followed every rule to the letter, so it was impossible for Nancy and the others to ding his performance, but every last aspect of his appearance was off somehow. He wore a messy blond bob of a wig that conflicted with his skin tone and was obviously a wig; he wore matronly dresses three sizes too big, so the shape of his body was hidden and he ended up looking like a giant floral tent.

His daily makeup routine was a work of abstract art in how awful he could make it. Every day Nancy would criticize it and give him pointers on how to improve, and the next morning Dean would apply her advice in the most grotesque manner possible. Black eye kohl too dark? Better make it ghostly white, then. Purple glitter cheeks over the top? Clearly yellow sparkles would be an improvement. Cas would look him over from the next mirror, not with the knowing grin of the other kids at how successfully bad he was, but with worried looks. She was always worried he'd crossed the line and would get more punishment than ten minutes off. Dean was only worried they'd give up and make Cas do his morning make-up, which would actually look respectable.

The one aspect of Dean's appearance he couldn't control was his body underneath the clothes, and there the insidious estrogen was taking effect. Or progesta-whatever, because the breasts were definitely getting bigger. The young men in Six were always asking to see and touch them, and every time it felt like they were admiring deformed alien tumors. Even Cas had caught a glimpse of them coming out of the shower one day recently, and been as impressed as Dean was horrified.

“That's a lot of growth for a single month, Dean.”

“Ugh, Cas, don't you know to keep your eyes to yourself in the shower?” He grabbed a towel and covered the loathsome body. Dean swore he was getting rounder in the hips too, but maybe that was his paranoid imagination.

“I'm just surprised, normally it takes months for breast tissue to develop.”

“They injected me with some new shit to make them grow. It's gross. Hate 'em.”

Cas frowned at that, almost a little insulted, so Dean hastened to add: “Hey, I just mean me, all right? Look good on you, if you want them.”

During the day they chitchatted like old friends, but they never mentioned what went on at night. The men stopped coming to Cas's bed quite as regularly after about a week, giving up on the game to provoke Dean. He was grateful for tiny mercies, for despite her protestations that it was no big deal, Cas's body at night when Dean held her told a different story. Sometimes it took up to a half hour for her muscles to relax and fall against him, and then they both could sleep.

The month turned blastingly hot, and in that old building not meant for summer use, it was a furnace. Soon Dean had no choice but to wear skimpy tops where the breasts were obvious, although he still tried to hide in ugly oversized T-shirts to go with his skirts. The roof became a popular evening destination to beat the heat, a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell sacred space to relax, socialize, or even make out while others looked the other way. Every day after Cas's day shifts in Building Three, Dean met her in the southeast corner they had staked out, to discuss information gathering and strategy.

“So? Any luck today?”

Cas shook her head no. She had been quietly asking every Mother in the building whether they had a son named Sam – Sam being a safer, more obscure query than Dean or Mary Winchester, they decided. But so far, no dice.

Dean flopped back down on the towels they used as a ground cover and covered his eyes in the fading sunlight. “What do you think, Cas? Am I just being stupid here? Maybe we should make a run for it while we still have the chance. Their guard is down around us, now.”

“I don't know, Dean. They're releasing another group from first trimester quarantine this week. I'm not allowed up on the implantation floor. Maybe at least screen this bunch? I think Miss Nancy will let you come over with me soon, if I ask nicely.”

“Wish I could draw. Then you'd know what she looked like,” Dean sighed.

“That might not help. She could look a lot different. Sometimes they have health problems from all the IVF. Kidney disease, weight gain, that kind of thing. They have a whole wing for the ones on dialysis.”

Dean didn't know what dialysis was, but he shuddered nonetheless. It sounded like even more of a horror show over there than here in Building One, which was saying something. At least the boys-who-would-be-girls were young and healthy, and once they were done making you into a girl they left your body alone and sent you back into the world again. Dean couldn't imagine what it would be like to be trapped in the same building for years on end, and forced to have surgery and little kicking things implanted inside you over and over again.

Cas rolled over to avoid the sun glaring in her eyes, and kicked her sandaled feet. She brushed her hair out of her face and rested her chin and her hands, staring at another couple across the rooftop that were practicing oral on each other. “Dean? Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“If we managed to escape, would you want me to stay a boy or a girl?”

“What? I don't care, Cas, it's your choice.”

“I know, but I mean, do you have a preference?”

Dean frowned this time, trying to picture her back as a boy. The thought of Cas wearing grungy flannel and jeans and cutting her hair seemed off somehow. _Did_ it make a difference? The truth was, while he despised the breasts and hair and skirts that rounded his butt on himself, and pretty much wanted to smash the mirror every time he glimpsed himself in them, on Cas all of that was kind of … nice. Appealing, although Dean would be hard-pressed to say why.

“I'm… used to you as a girl,” he said at last, carefully.

Cas nodded as if that answered the question. “Okay. I just wouldn't mind being a boy, if, you know, you liked it better that way.”

Dean snorted at that. “You should do what you want, not what other people want. Look at me, I wouldn't agree to be a girl for anyone, not even you. Sorry.”

For some reason Cas grinned at that and nudged closer, so her head was practically resting on his shoulder. “That's one reason I like you, Dean. You are very stubbornly… you.”

* * * * *

The next morning Cas and Dean went down to Miss Nancy's office, with the intent of begging her for Dean's Building Three privileges. Cas had a whole proposal built up in her head, about how it would teach Dean to serve and submit more to help out the real-fems. But it turned out Nancy was already looking for the two of them anyway.

“Cassie! Wonderful news, my dear. A high ranking potential suitor has picked your photo out of the current group. A senator, you lucky girl! He's coming by to interview you this morning, so you need to present yourself properly.”

Cas looked terrified and stunned, and Dean's face probably wasn't much better. Someone was coming to inspect and claim her, like she was a fucking farm animal that had been fattened up.

“But, Miss Nancy,” Cas stammered, “it's morning, I don't usually … I mean, I'm not ready for...”

“You may go the bathroom now to freshen up. Be back in Room 14 in twenty minutes.”

Cas got up to flee, and Dean rose to follow. But then Miss Nancy said, “Not you Addie. Stay here.”

They looked at each helplessly, then Cas nodded and left, while Dean sank back into a chair. Dean knew he did not have permission to speak first.

“So, Addie, I hear you want to help out in Building Three with Cassie. Is that correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Hope surged in Dean; maybe there was still time to check out the Mother's building, then run, run as fast as possible.

“Cassie's going to be leaving us in the very near future, so I'm inclined to let you take over her role in Building Three. I assume she's told you who is over there. But the residents of that building are very precious, by far the most important things in this compound, so it's vital that I be able to trust you and your self-control, Addie. The future of the entire human race is at stake. And the problem is, I suspect that you haven't genuinely accepted your position in life, and are clownishly faking it to avoid getting sent to Research. How close am I?”

Dean sat meekly, terrified where this line of thought was going. Goddammit, why couldn't he suck it up and put on decent makeup and clothes like all the other kids?

“I think your allegiance to Cassie is a sticking point here, Addie. I know you two are close, but that will end by next week. So I'm going to give you an opportunity to assist me today, and I expect full cooperation. If you can demonstrate discretion and self-restraint, I'll let you have the few remaining days with Cassie and allow you to take on some of her responsibilities. But if you can't, not only will I send her along without your goodbyes, I will have to seriously reconsider your place in the program. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss Nancy,” Dean choked out. “What do you want me to do?”

“I may have need for a runner or messenger for Senator Paley while he is assessing Cassie. You will be on stand-by for anything he requires. Otherwise you will be still and say absolutely nothing unless spoken to. You will not interfere with the events of the interview in any way. Clear?”

“Yes, Miss Nancy,” Dean repeated. He had to stand around and watch while someone slobbered all over Cas. Disgusting. But it sounded like all he had to do was keep his mouth shut for an hour, and he'd get what he wanted. It couldn't be any worse than listening to her being raped night after night, could it?

“Good.” She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out some tissues and a bottle. “Take that make-up off, your face looks lovelier without it. Wig too. All right, good enough, follow me.”

* * * * *

To Dean's surprise, Miss Nancy wasn't in charge of the meeting with the senator; some other administrator dude was, and Nancy had to stand quietly back and defer to him. It was so out of character Dean hardly knew what was going on, but then he realized it was because she was a woman, and of course women couldn't be in charge. For the first time, Dean idly wondered why she wasn't in Building Three.

But then the senator walked in, and Dean was shocked. The guy was _old._ Gray hair, pudgy despite being well-built at some point in the past, wrinkles around his engaging brown eyes. This was the sort of person they were marrying the girls off to? Why would someone old enough to be Cas' grandfather want to fuck her and keep her as a wife?

Cas arrived accompanied by some guards, fetchingly put together in a pencil skirt, embroidered tank top and light makeup that made her blue eyes look huge and shiny. She kept those eyes downcast, and didn't so much as glance at Dean, although she must have caught a glance of him lurking behind Miss Nancy.

“Come here, child, let me have a look at you,” said Paley. He ran a rough finger the soft skin of her face, then down her neck to a shoulder. “Beautiful and understated, Tom, did she doll up like that herself?”

“Of course, sir, part of the training at the facility is complete self-sufficiency for their wifely duties.”

“Mmm. The country is full of do-it-yourself makeup whores, though, what does she look like underneath the feminine clothes?”

“You can see the goods, of course,” replied Admin Dude Tom. “Cassie, take off your clothes and come sit on the exam table.”

With only brief hesitation, Cas pulled the tank top off without messing up her face. It was so hot, she hadn't bothered with a bra. The Senator's eyes bored into her small swollen breasts. Then, with a greater pause she unzipped the skirt and pulled it and her underwear down in one fluid movement, freeing her cock.

Dean had glimpsed Cas naked before, of course, but normally he maintained strict bathroom etiquette and kept his eyes to himself. But now, with her on display like that, he couldn't help but admire her body. She really was soft and beautiful, like her external form somehow radiated out her gentle soul. He didn't even mind the combination of breasts and cock, which according much of the propaganda the kids had been taught said should be weird and unnatural, for it was neither one or the other, fully female or male. Some part Dean's male-only existence just expected everyone to have a cock, anyway. People would look weird without one, breasts or no.

Cas moved to sit on the table – the same table some classes used to practice sucking each other off and fucking – but the Senator blocked her, and cupped a breast as she stood there in one of his hands. “Real,” he murmured. “I haven't seen beauties like these in years. God, we've got to get estrogen out more widely in the populace. This is too good to hide in a few camps.”

Paley pulled her nipple out and let it go with a snap, and Cas briefly flinched. Then he ran both hands down the sides of her body to her rounded butt, and then to front to her limp dick hanging softly down.

“I thought bottom surgery was part of the deal,” Paley said.

“We leave it up to the individual suitors,” the administrator said. “Many men are used to boys now, after all, and we have several options of reconstructive surgery to choose from. Our surgeons even offer the option of partial vaginal construction while leaving the penis intact, so you can have the best of both worlds.”

“Well, I understand the impulse. Two holes and cock to torture, what a world.” He pushed a hand between Cas's legs, stroking the smooth skin under her cock. “But, no. She needs to look as much like a real-fem as possible. In my position, I can't afford any rumors of homosexuality. She must appear and act like a female in every respect, and frankly I don't need a daily reminder of where these girls came from. How soon can the surgery be scheduled?”

“We have an opening in four days. Recovery time's only about a month with the lab-grown skin graft. Also, there are other, more subtle modifications that can be done. We removed the pharyngeal reflex in the throat upon arrival, but now lubricating glands can also be implanted behind the internal anal sphincter. Leave no hole untouched, is our motto.”

“I'm just a politician, Tom, I don't know these fancy words.” The rest of the room laughed. “But, really, where's the fun in trying to turn an ass into a pussy? Sometimes you do want a change of scenery.”

Paley stepped back, and motioned Cas towards the table. “Up now, girl, on your back. Time to have a better look at that pretty little body. Think I like you enough to take that boy-cunt for a test drive.”

 _No. Noooooo,_ thought Dean, but all he could do was stand rigid still at attention, digging his nails into his hip in repressed fury. Nancy hadn't said a word, her face as still as stone. Why was she here? Why did she make Dean come here and watch?

Cas had obediently laid down on the table, her legs ramrod straight and pressed together. She looked calm, if a bit stiff, but Dean could tell from her breathing that she had terror and anxiety bottled up. Knowing Cas, she wanted nothing more than to please this asshole, but it was tough to know what to do when you've been instructed to be quiet and deferential. At least in Building Six, you could ask the young men what they wanted, what they liked. A lot of the guys Dean had encountered in his short tenure as a prostitute simply wanted to know if a lipsticked feminine mouth felt different from a male one, or how squishy the breasts were. Nothing fancy.

The senator, though, didn't ask for anything, for this was not a negotiation. He stood off to Cas's side up by her chest, and dragged his fingertips along her satiny skin. Then he bent over and slid a nipple into his mouth. Dean's eyebrows shot up in surprise when Cas's back arched off the table.

“Mmm, delectable,” Paley said after breaking off. “Non-plastic surgery titties, just lovely. But the let's try this...”

He kissed her on the mouth then, not too roughly but still a surprise. Cas struggled to respond, and Dean could practically see her rolling through flowcharts in her head – did he want tenderness? Enthusiasm? Passion? Paley pulled back after a few seconds and stroked her cheek again with his thumb, and then turned to the admin with a leering grin.

“Does kiss like a little girl, though. Work on that with her, Tom, I do prefer someone with experience. _Deep_ experience.”

The room laughed again. Dean dug his nails into his leg so hard that he was bleeding through the dress.

Paley moved down the short end of the table, and pulled Cas's butt forward so she was forced wide open on the very edge. “Someone thought ahead, I see. Good, child.” He pressed two fingers into her pre-lubed ass, again not especially rough but with no care either, merely probing for her response. Cas automatically relaxed, as she had practiced for months, and let him in easily.

Apparently Paley interpreted that as enough foreplay, for he withdrew and unbuckled his own pants just enough to free his cock. He pulled her thighs apart and shoved in with a grunt. Cas compensated at once for the callous intrusion with barely so much as an outward breath. She had the same expression that Dean had seen a dozen times before, at once concentrating and dissociating, as if the only thing on her mind was preventing her body from tensing up.

After a few harsh thrusts Paley slowed down and bent over Cas. “Sit up, girl, and put your arms around me. You're too quiet. I prefer a girl who sounds like she's enjoying herself while she's getting fucked, not just lying around waiting for it to be over. I'm guessing they taught you better than that.”

 _We are waiting for you to be over,_ thought Dean bitterly. Who could enjoy this? Who could do it to another person, knowing full well that they were faking it? Maybe it was true, all men cared about was the illusion.

Nevertheless Cas obeyed, sitting up and digging her nails into the guy's back. She managed some moans, which was so unlike her and obviously feigned that now Dean had to resist the urge to hysterically laugh. It did sound disturbingly like bad porn. But that was enough to get the senator into it, and he buried his face in Cas's breasts and thrust until he buried his load deep within her. He didn't pull out quickly at the end, but continued to kiss her chest with a groan.

“Better, little girl,” he huffed, out of breath. “At least you're trainable, and just as compliant as your file says. Tom, do you have some plugs around here?”

The admin guy jerked his head towards Miss Nancy for the first time in the encounter, and she leaned over and pulled an average-sized anal dildo out of a drawer. Normally they were used, at varying diameters, for training purposes.

“Bigger,” said Paley, and with barely an eyebrow twitch Nancy pulled out a larger eight-incher with a flared base.

“Now you are mine,” Paley said, and pulled out just long enough to shove the device into Cas. She gasped as he worked it in, using some semen as lube, for the thing was a lot bigger than he had been. “I'm putting a claim on you, and telling your teachers right now that there is to be no more sex lessons, and no more public service. I'll finish your training myself. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Cas said softly, with hardly a whimper about being fucked. It was the first words she had spoken since entering the room.

“You're a good girl,” Paley told her, and kissed her forehead. Cas looked relieved and grateful, and Dean wanted to spit at him, for of course that's all Cas would like to hear. Love and approval and affection, but she was only getting one of those, and on disgusting terms. “Wear this until tomorrow when I'll be back for more fun, hopefully under more comfortable circumstances. After that, I'll see you after delivery, after your surgery.”

He pulled up his pants and ignored her then, walking out of the room and laughing with the others with hardly a backwards glance. When all the men were gone, Dean ran up to Cas and threw his arms around her.

“Did I really do okay?” Cas asked Miss Nancy, as she struggled to sit up and find a comfortable position.

“Fine, my dear,” Nancy told her kindly, and rubbed her thumb on Cas's face, very similar to Paley's touch. “You're very well trained.”

She turned to Dean and patted him on the shoulder as well. “You also managed to control yourself, Addie, and kept your mouth shut. You may go with Cassie to Building Three this afternoon and observe her duties. If I receive an adequate report, perhaps you can take over for her when she departs on Thursday. Right now I want you to help Cassie get her clothes on and get cleaned up.”

Their teacher, too, then left. Dean continued to hold on to Cas, and the only thing he could think of to say was _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry._ He half-expected Cas to tell him there was nothing to be sorry for, but she didn't. Instead she clung to him, and rested her head on his shoulder, and didn't say a word.

 

* * * * *

By three pm the interior old high school had baked like an oven to about 85 degrees. Normally Dean at that time would be stripping down for a shower, ignoring the annoyed pleas of the other kids to get the hell out of the stall, because they were hot too. But today he met Cas down on the first floor not too far from the dreaded endocrinology lab, to be escorted to Building Three.

“You okay?” Dean whispered as Cas rounded the stairwell.

“Fine,” she said, her face blank, and Dean internally sighed. Everything about their lives sucked, why couldn't she ever rage a bit, maybe punch some walls? She was too damned _nice._

As if to prove the point, she proffered a piece of clothing. “Here. Take this, Dean.”

“A sweater? Come on, it's probably like two hundred degrees outside.”

“Not in Building Three, though.”

A group of about twenty girls filed through the front entrance, accompanied by five guards. Each silently scanned themselves at the security pad at the front door, signing themselves back into Building One. “Next group line up,” called one of the guards. “No talking, no deviating from the line.”

They were patted down – for what contraband, Dean couldn't guess – then released through the doors one by one with a beep of the wrist.

Dean blinked in the bright afternoon sun. He'd been outside in the past month on the roof, but mostly late in the evening, not during full summer blast. Nevertheless he paid attention to the details on the ground, now that he could see outside One from the ground level. From here there seemed to be so many soldiers – a few of whom Dean recognized from their lessons or Building Six – and a lot of green transport vehicles coming and going. He knew there was a main entrance to the camp on the left, and a cargo entrance in the southwest corner behind them to the right. Cleverly, neither one of these escape routes were visible on their walk.

At the gleaming glass entryway to Building Three they were scanned again. As he walked through Dean was shocked by the blast of chill. _Air conditioned._ It did feel downright cold. Cas caught his eye as he put the sweater on and gave him a small smile.

“We're only allowed here on the first floor, with the second and third trimesters,” she muttered under her breath. The guards were still glaring them down for infractions, until they were all inside and processed. “Upstairs it's implantation, first trimester and postpartum. Um, security's restricted up there, but there's cameras everywhere down here too.”

They were ushered through yet another set of doors, no windows this time, and with an entirely new set of guards. Unlike the girls' building, every door in this place required authorization scanning to open. Obviously everyone was being tracked, even inside.

The group split off inside, with assistants headed to different rooms. Cas took Dean's hand and lead him down a long hallway to deep within the building. “One of the main dormitories. You ready?”

Dean nodded. He was too nervous to even crack a joke.

The room they entered was enormous, the size of a gymnasium, with giant flat-screen televisions blaring some annoying daytime show from every wall, and the rest of the cavernous space crowded with rows of beds. Most of them were inhabited, filled by huge swollen bodies with bloated faces and long hair. Not just baby-big in the belly: Swollen limbs and sallow faces puffed up by repeated pregnancy, hormones, organ failure. Some were so gigantic Dean couldn't see how they made it out of bed, and on closer inspection many of the women were indeed hooked up to IVs and bedpans of various sorts. It was hard, no, _impossible_ to reconcile the image of the oversexed real-fems in his indoctrinated mind with the inflated creatures that were the Mothers.

The rest of the girls nonchalantly wandered over to retrieve some checklists at a desk, while Dean stopped and gawked at it all. The women nearest him eyed him appreciatively and called out endearments.

“Ooh, a new one. Come talk to me, honey, I need a bright young face.”

“No makeup? Well you don't need it. What's your family name, with those green eyes? Who was your mother?”

“Hey, kid, I could really use a sheet change here. And, maybe, a foot massage?”

“Cassie, introduce your friend. They only train new ones when the old ones get assigned. You're not leaving us, are you sweetheart?”

Cas had returned with a clipboard of tasks. She smiled and waved at the one that addressed her by name. “Sorry, Dolores, I might be gone soon. But you'll like Addie here. She's very… opinionated.”

“Way to be in role here, Cas,” Dean muttered to her.

“Everyone thinks you're being trained as my replacement, so play along,” Cas whispered back. Then, a little louder, “Why don't you introduce yourself and say 'Hi' to everyone, Addie, while I go around a do bedsore check?”

“Right. Sure. Hi everybody.” It was good opportunity to eyeball everyone in the room, Dean admitted. He vowed he could still recognize Mom, even if she was the size of a whale now.

He circled the room and made eye contact with every resident within a few short minutes, but not one was familiar. Finally he decided to take a risk with Dolores, the one nice to Cas. “Hey, um, Cas… Cassie mentioned that there might be some new arrivals from the other floor? Are they here yet?”

“Some are. Some were assigned across the hall, more births vacated spots lately over there. Why, are you...” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “...looking for someone?”

He shook his head, terrified he'd said too much. Dolores stared him with sad liquid brown eyes, and nodded in understanding. “Well, honey, you should meet everyone. Your kind little friend has access to this entire floor. Cassie!” She said it sharply, and Cas jumped. “Why don't you show your friend the other room across the hall while you change out the laundry? So she sees _everybody?”_

Cas picked up a huge ball of sheets and lumbered to the door, barely able to angle the wrist to the scanner to let them out. “Laundry's down here, but I'll just let you in. If you see any male doctors, keep your head down and don't talk, okay? You're supposed to just follow me around today, but I doubt anyone'll notice.”

“Cas, if she's not here, that's it right? There's no where else to check?”

“Well, some are always absent for tests, and there's ICU down the hall, and the dialysis ward, and the geriatric ward, which is also sort of like ICU. Women in their fifties and sixties aren't meant to be pregnant, need a lot of care, but that isn't what you're looking for.” She paused behind the muffling laundry. “But, yeah, odds are this is most of what I have access to. Sorry, Dean.”

“S'okay. Thanks, Cas.”

The room was the mirror image of the one across the hall, with one exception: The televisions were off, and a team of technicians were walking around with a rolling computer, doing some sort of scan on woman after pregnant woman. The room was eerily silent, except for the faint thump of heartbeats coming from the machine.

Dean avoided the doctors, and went from bed to bed on the opposite side of the room, trying to look like he belonged there. He wished he had a clipboard. Each woman assessed him just as much as he did them, some hopeful, some sad, some giving him the stoney hard stares of the emotionally dead. No one looked familiar.

There was a commotion over by the heartbeat machine. The doctors hovered over a sobbing woman, angrily arguing over the lack of _thwump thwump thwump_. And behind them, next in the row of beds to be scanned, Dean suddenly saw her.

She _wasn't_ a beached whale, to his relief. Her body was thicker, and her face filled out and more wrinkly than he remembered, but the familiar freckles graced her nose, just like his, and the golden blond hair cascaded down. Almost alone among the boys of the world, his mother was _alive._

Mary had already spotted him, and as he prepared to dash across the room to throw himself into her arms, she slowly and firmly shook her head _No._ Then she jerked her head towards the distracted technicians, who would be moving on to her after hauling the crying woman away.

Dean didn't know what to do. If he stood there staring or made a scene, the doctors or guards would probably investigate. But he couldn't bring himself to stand there, in that room with Mom only a few feet away, and ignore her and busy himself with trivialities. So he slowly nudged away from the cart towards the door, realizing he had no choice but to come back later. Mary looked as if she, too, were about to break down into sobs, but nodded affirmation for him to leave.

He collapsed in the hallway just outside the door. Cas found him a few minutes later, head dropped into knees covered in the hideous dress, and she deposited her pile of clean replacement sheets in the hall in order to fling her arms around him.

“You didn't find her. I'm so sorry,” she whispered into his ear.

“No,” Dean choked out. “She's there. But they were doing some kind of test, and I … I couldn't...”

“What?” said Cas.

“Can you go in there, Cas? The docs know you, maybe you can talk to her and she can send a message on when to come back?”

“ _What?”_ Cas repeated. “Your mother's _alive?_ Nobody's mother is alive.”

Dean pulled up the gauzy skirt enough to wipe his eyes. “Don't believe me? You think I'm crazy, Cas? Go in and ask her. Ask her what her sons' names are. Bed #871.”

“It's okay, Dean. I'll… check. But you shouldn't be out in the hall like this, the guards can see you on that camera. Come on, wait for me in the laundry room.”

She parked Dean in a chair in a room down the hall filled with industrial-sized washing machines. Girls seemed to come and go, depositing their dirty linens, transferring to dryers and taking whatever was ready back out again. Cas was gone an unusually long time, over a half hour, and when she returned, she too had a staggered expression on her face.

“She knew who Sam was. She knew your real name was Dean,” Cas said, almost more to herself than Dean. “I had to wait until they were done with the ultrasound, and they're taking her upstairs for more tests today, but she _knew._ She says to come back tomorrow and meet her in women's bathroom 1-F at 3:30.” Cas sank down to the floor next Dean in the chair, almost as shocked by the situation at Dean was forty minutes ago.

“Ha. You thought I was making shit up, didn't you?”

“Not deliberately, but it did sound a little bit, I dunno, delusional. I mean, what are the odds? Good thing you never told them your real name, they never would have let you come in here.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pronounced pause, then Dean ventured out with the truth.

“So, are you coming with us? Will you help us escape? It's real, Cas, I'm really leaving. And you don't have to go with that guy. You don't have to have surgery to make you look like someone else's idea of a girl. I mean, I'm not saying you have to live with my family if you don't want to either, but at least out there, you can choose.”

“I… understand.”

That's all the response Dean could get for the day.

* * * * *

Eventually Cas had to go back to her chores in the first ward, but she left Dean alone to sit with her thoughts and plans. There wasn't a lot of point to Dean learning Cas's duties now. Back in Building One they parted ways, Dean going to the roof as usual, but Cas didn't join him. He left her alone to contemplate the risks they were about to take, while he sat on the sizzling rooftop for hours, memorizing every detail of the compound.

That night he came back to the dorm late, just in time for the evening body count and just before the nightly staff rapes began. Dean was used to the supposed sex practice by now, although he was still largely immune to predation; dragging him down from his bunk by the hair and demanding some oral was about the worst he ever got. Once Dr. Taylor lay on top of him next to Cas, and he was sure he would be ripped open, but instead Taylor had only rubbed between his legs with a little lube. Intercrural they called it; he knew all the fancy names now. And tonight, true to the agreement with Senator Paley, no one came for Cas within the standard times.

Dean drifted off in the stifling room, forgetting to climb down and press his lonely body against Cas's beautiful silky one for the night. He woke up with a start late after dark, to a familiar if faint creaking of their adjoined beds. Cautiously he poked his head over the edge to catch a glimpse of who was down there, so late night.

It was only Cas.

In the heat she had completely stripped and pressed her body against the cool wall. While she rested a sticky forehead on the painted cement, one hand was wrapped around her cock, and the other squeezed a nipple in rhythmic pulses. The anal plug from the morning was still embedded deeply inside her, and from the rocking motion and squeezing her legs shut, Dean knew it was hitting her in that rare spot that could push them over.

Dean lay there and watched her for a few moments, mesmerized by the sight of her taking her own pleasure. In all the lessons he had received, never, not once, had there been any discussion female enjoyment of sex. Real-fem or faux-fem, it didn't seem to matter; it had been made clear over and over that the only arousal that mattered was the male partner's. The female job was to be attractive to the male, nothing more or less, and if they had to deaden or surgically rip out every sensation in their bodies to reach that goal, it was supposed to be well-worth doing.

But here was Cas, focused on her own body for once. Dean's heart leapt out to her. Because Cas was constantly looking after other people, never thinking of herself or her own inconvenience or pain. He wanted to give back to her for once, make that body she'd worked so hard for sing with pleasure, make her feel loved and desired for herself, and not just for her usefulness to others.

For the first time since this ordeal began, Dean felt his cock grow hard.

He left his own T-shirt and underwear on – for however much he liked Cas's body, he still hated his own – and quietly dropped down over the side of the bunk. Cas jumped in embarrassment and rolled towards him to take him to bed, but instead of snuggling up like usual Dean bent over and kissed her. Not hard, not demanding, but the way he imagined she would like it, tenderly letting her know how much he wanted her and probing to see if the feeling was mutual. She was startled, but didn't pull back in repulsion, and a few heartbeats later wrapped her hands around his head to pin him to her. Dean loosened up then, exploring her lips, her tongue, then eventually the salty skin of her face and neck.

Cas reached down to take Dean's cock through his shorts, but he shooed the hand away. “No, no, let me. You just feel everything for once,” Dean murmured.

“But you're the boy,” Cas whispered back. “I should...”

“ _No,”_ Dean insisted. “All I want is to touch you, and to watch you come. You _deserve_ this, Cas, you deserve it so much...”

Cas grabbed his face to kiss him again.

This time when Dean began to wander south, he didn't stop. He kissed her in crock of her neck, then her collarbone, and down to nuzzling her small pretty breasts. There'd been a lesson weeks ago on “nipple play,” and Dean went with the assumption that if something worked for some men's chests, it'd be good for girl's breasts too. He brought a nipple into his mouth and sucked it, gently at first but then harder as he felt her breathing hitch and fingers tighten into his shaggy hair to encourage more.

They went on like that for hours, mostly making out, caressing each other everywhere, Dean licking and sucking every square inch of her body. He wanted to suck her off, which in itself was a revelation, for never before did Dean understand how good it felt to make someone else feel good, if you cared about them. But Cas kept interrupting him whenever he guessed she was close, and would pull him back up for more deep kissing while rubbing their bodies along each other as close as possible. She couldn't get enough, as if all this touching made up for years of affection neglect, with no one to hug or hold or love since she was six years old.

At some point she coaxed down Dean's underwear – leaving the shirt alone, for Cas probably understood his own horrible breasts were kind of a deal-breaker for him – and they ground together, both groaning hard, on the edge of something but unable to fully push over. It didn't feel like the orgasms of old, which Dean dimly remembered as an overwhelming drive for release, to build up the pleasure mainly in the cock and have it spill over from there. Instead it was like the orgasm could come from anywhere on the surface of their bodies, unfocused diffuse pleasure radiating up and down like waves bobbing on the ocean.

Finally Cas brought his face back to her chest. “Hard. _Please,”_ she whispered, and Dean complied. He sucked in a rhythm, flicking the other nipple with a free hand. Cas massaged the head of her cock, down near his but not worried about getting him off at all, which was exactly what Dean wanted. She shifted to use his leg to put pressure on the base of the plug, fucking herself by increments against him. At last her body couldn't hold it all, and Dean felt her gasp and shudder from head to toe, and practically rip his hair out at the neck as she came.

Afterward Dean nuzzled his way back up to the top of her body, and they curled up with limbs intertwined to try and rest. Despite the dripping heat, they couldn't stand not touching each other, not even to sleep. Dean couldn't remember feeling more satisfied, despite his cock still being semi-hard. He might never be able to come with this body, but it didn't matter at that moment, engulfed as they were in happiness and adrenaline-sparked pleasure and love.

“ _Now_ will you leave with us?” Dean whispered into her ear, as hushed as possible. It was the sort of night where every other kid in the room was probably awake, listening to them the whole time. “Don't go be the wife of some asshole politician who puts kids and women in camps and writes 'time to fuck Cassie' on his schedule. Come be part of my family now.”

“I don't think that was very sisterly,” Cas whispered back, and Dean laughed and kissed her neck.

“We'll ask Mom tomorrow, but I bet it'll be all right if you're not my brother or sister. Whaddya say?”

“Okay. I'll go.”

She curled her fingers up in his, and he brought them to his lips.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning Dean groggily came to as he sensed Cas getting out of bed next to him. He grabbed her hand just as she pulled away, and cracked his eyes open enough to see the lights hadn't popped on for the morning yet. The other kids were probably asleep at this hour, finally.

Cas bent over him to whisper her goodbyes. “I want to wash up for this morning. Right? I'll see you later.”

Without make-up, with her thin body and messy morning bed-head, it struck Dean that she was _kid_ , they were both just kids. How fucked up was it that they both knew what they knew, and had done what they'd done, and were expected to act like miniature adults?

Dean craned up off the bed and whispered back. “Only one more day, okay Cas? Then no more of this. We can do one more day.”

Cas nodded, but her blue eyes avoided his gaze. She'd go along with him to the ends of the Earth, but she didn't believe they'd get away, not even after finding Mom. Not really. Well, Dean was determined to prove her wrong. He reached out to grasp the fingers of her hand, only the tips, before she moved to grab her clothes. “Three o'clock?” No need to say where.

This time Cas nodded with conviction, “Three o'clock,” she said, and pulled away.

Presumably she was running off early to wash off all traces of their night together before meeting with that dickhead at nine. More or less bad than a work shift in Building Six? Dean rolled his head underneath Cas' pillow and squeezed, trying not to think about it. It was the only way bottle up the four weeks of accumulated helpless rage, which felt like it could blow at any moment.

One more day.

* * * * *

When Dean did get up, for once he thought carefully about the gunk he was splattering across his face. Today Mom was going to see him in it, because it might arouse suspicion were he to defy standing rules about acceptable make-up use. Dean didn't want to, though, or wear a dress; didn't want her to see him as a girl at all. He finally threw on a short skirt over the top of the one pair of jeans he'd managed to scrounge up, and a little bit blush and lip gloss that would probably wear off by noon anyway. If Miss Nancy complained about it he would put more on, but otherwise that was it.

Irritatingly enough, Nancy told Dean he looked more like a girl than ever. _Bitch._ She probably meant it as a compliment, though, so Dean forced a smile and meekly handed over his wrist for the ten minutes he had no intention of ever using. He actually had a few hours built up, because he and Cas spent so much time up on the roof, and so little time in the rec room. A lot of the girls – _boys_ , he forced his brain to think – did the same, saving up their precious minutes for the grim winter months. Not going to be Dean's problem, one way or another.

At three he showed up on the first floor, just as Cas wobbled in through the front door and joined the group. Something about her seemed… unsteady.

“You've been gone all day?” Dean whispered. “Building Six? You okay?”

“He took me to lunch,” Cas murmured back, her shoulders drooping with exhaustion. “After...after our morning together.”

“Lunch? Like in the cafeteria?” Dean asked.

“No,” Cas said. “As in a high-end restaurant outside the compound.”

Dean's eyes widened. _Outside?_ And Cas just nonchalantly came _back?_

“I think the fruity drink they gave me may have contained alcohol,” Cas continued, ignoring Dean's frantic expression. “I feel...weird? Spinney? A nap would be nice too. Maybe that's what he meant by 'another kind of good time'.”

“Why didn't you _run?”_ Dean hissed. “Perfect opportunity to make a break for it, dummy!”

Cas leaned on Dean and buried her face in his hair, just as the guards began to glare at the two of them. “But then I'd never see you again,” she mumbled in his ear. “Where would I go?”

“Cassie? Everything all right here?” The guard loomed over them, and Dean jabbed Cas in the side to get her to stand up properly. “Maybe I should give Addie to someone else for the afternoon. You look done for the day.”

“No!” Dean put in. “I mean, no sir, Cassie's fine. We've only got a couple of days left for her to show me the ropes, right?”

“I'm fine,” Cas repeated, nodding vaguely in the guard's direction. Then she plastered such an obvious robo-smile on her face that even Dean shuddered.

The guard rolled his eyes and shrugged. _“Girls,”_ he said disgustedly. “Fine, whatever, get your asses in line if you're going over today. Arms out, no talking.”

With a little prodding from Dean, Cas managed to make it across the compound in the sweltering sun. By the time they made it into Three, her face had paled to a sallow color and her hands were shaking. After pushing through security, Dean dragged Cas down the hall to the infrequently-used handicapped bathroom outside the geriatric ward, where they were due to meet Mom.

“I feel very strange,” said Cas.

“Yeah, yeah, wait to throw up until we're in the bathroom,” Dean replied. “Great timing to get drunk, Cas.”

“I didn't have much choice, I'm sorry.”

They made it to the wide single-person bathroom, which Dean noted had an “occupied/unoccupied” sign but no actual lock. Still, it appeared to be more private than the bigger, frequently trafficked facilities over near the main wards. Cas slumped against a thick metal grab bar and leaned her forehead against the wall.

Dean huffed out a breath at her obvious distress. “I know you didn't. It's okay, Cas, you made it through the morning. You'll never have to see him again, I promise.”

“You don't know that, Dean.” She craned her head up from the wall to stare at him with those crystal-blue eyes, despairing. “How are we going to get out of here, even with your mother? She's been a prisoner for eight years. If it's so easy to get away, how come she's still here? Maybe the only way out is _their_ way out.”

“What's it to you?” Dean retorted. “If we get caught, they'll just send you to surgery anyway, right? _I'm_ the one they'd blame and haul to Research. 'Cause once troublemaker Addie is gone, they know you'll go right back to being their female whore.” He shimmied down the skirt as the words tumbled out, and threw the offending garment at Cas.

Just then, there was a soft knock at the door. Cas slumped down to the floor, still clinging to the bar, and closed her eyes.

Dean found that he couldn't deal with two things at once, not now. He turned around and cracked open the door to see Mary staring at him through the crack. With a small cry, Dean flung himself into her arms even before Mary had made it through the door. She let it slam behind her as she her face in his hair and squeezed him to her body.

“Dean, Dean. I never thought I'd see you again,” Mary said, cupping his face. “God, what have they done to you, honey? Lipstick on a twelve-year-old? I'm so, so sorry.”

They stood there awhile, both babbling on and off. Dean didn't want to budge, from that spot, from her embrace, never move again. She was _alive,_ everything had to okay, then, right? Every last terror he had endured was worth it to see her again.

Down on the floor, Cas managed a weak “Hi” behind Dean's back. Mary must have caught her eye.

“Um, Dean? Is your friend okay?”

“Her future _husband_ thought it would be funny to slip her a few drinks. Mom, this is Cas. Or, uh, Cassie, I guess.”

“We've met. I remember Cassie even from last time I was down on this ward. You okay, honey? Maybe you should lie down. On the cold floor, that's it.” Mary moved to the sink and damped down some paper towels, and pressed the wet blog to her forehead. The move was so gently _mom-like_ that Dean had to choke back a cry.

Mary sat down on the floor next to Cas, her back against the wall and the slight roundness in her belly bulging out. Dean wobbled between his feet, unsure whether to run to her again, but then Mary beckoned him down to the floor too. He curled up in her lap just like he was four years old again, her warm hands holding his face and nuzzling the top of his head. At that moment he didn't care whether anyone barged in to break them up, it was enough to be held by her again.

At length Mary finally spoke. “Dean, baby, you've got to tell me how you got here. I thought for sure you and Sam would be Class I. Why didn't John take you across the border?”

“Someone at school stole my chip,” Dean murmured, his eyes still tightly closed. “Dad...never told us what happened to you. Maybe he was looking for you?”

Below him Mary tensed up, like she was annoyed at Dad or something, but her voice was still soothing. “He would do that, wouldn't he. All right. So they don't know you're Dean Winchester? Nobody rechecked your markers after you got here?”

“No. They pretty much just go by the chips.”

Mary snorted. “Good. Security doesn't sound too tight over in Building One.”

“It's not. We were going to make a run for the fence if we didn't find you here, but...”

“I _was_ here,” Mary finished for him. “You and Cassie? Still okay over there, honey?”

“Okaaay,” Cas drawled. “The floor is nice.”

“We'll get you a drink of water here in a minute. That'll make you feel better. Who did this to you, again? I doubt they're handing out mimosas to you kids over in the cafeteria.”

“Senator Paley picked me to be his public companion. But he had to test me out first,” Cas said.

“You mean, _use_ you and make sure you would follow orders,” Dean retorted. “You take care of everybody else, Cas, why won't you take care of yourself?” He craned up to look at Mary, who was watching the interaction with eagle eyes. “This is why we've got to get out of here. They're doing the surgery on Thursday, you know, the sex reassignment. I can't… I can't let them...Cas helped me when I first got here, she let them...”

He was babbling incoherently, on the verge of breaking down, unable to finish any of those thoughts. How could he look Mom in the eye and admit what had happened to them, what they had to do to survive? That he had been a coward and let his friend get fucked in place of him because he couldn't take going through that again, but then turned around and willingly sucked dick in order to curry favor? Mary wrapped her arms around Dean tightly and shushed him even as it felt like he was compressing his entire being closed, willing himself not to cry.

“Shh, it's okay, I understand,” Mary soothed. She stroked his face and murmured, “We all had to do things we didn't want to do. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want. You made it here, that's all that matters.”

Dean heaved deep breaths into her chest, trying to get control of himself. It would be all right. Everything would be all right now that he had found Mom. But then his grim argument with Cas arose in his brain, and he wondered _how_ they could possibly get out together.

“Mom?” Dean asked. “How come you didn't get out before now? Cas thought it might be hard to bring you with us.”

“Sorry to be pessimistic,” said Cas. “It's just a thought.” Color was coming back into her face, now that she was resting on the floor.

“It's fine. It's good to be realistic. There were escape attempts before, early on. Of course that just made beef up security. They've let down their guard somewhat since then, since this building was completed. Plus of course I didn't have two smart kids working for me on the outside then.” She grinned and kissed Dean's unruly head again, and he melted against her. It was such a relief to be a kid again and let the grown-up plan things out. He would do whatever she asked, whatever it took.

“We're not outside, we're still inside the security perimeter,” Cas said.

“You're in the perfect location. You have access to both higher and lower security, right? Some of your doctors or teachers must occasionally work in this building.”

“The guards more, but yes, I believe so,” Cas said.

“The guards keep track of each other, we need someone whose chip isn't being monitored so closely. Cassie, when did you say is your surgery?”

“Thursday.”

“And what day of the week is today?”

There was a shocked silence, then Dean ventured, “Tuesday, Mom. How come you don't...”

“It's easy to lose track of the date in here, honey. It all blurs together to be the same. I haven't seen the sun in, what, five years? Windows are too easy to jump through, too expensive for laminated glass. I think I know the year, though, its 1991, right?”

If she meant that to be comforting, it was anything but. Even Cas seemed to sober up to that. “The date is June 25, 1991. Tuesday,” Cas told her.

“So your surgery is the day after tomorrow? Doesn't give us a lot of time.”

“We could wait until after so you have time to plan. I really don't mind being a girl.”

“No!” Dean hissed. “Cut it out, Cas, you're coming with us.”

“Dean's right, honey. The recovery time for that surgery must be weeks, and by that time I'll be much more visibly pregnant.” Mary reached out to stroke Cas's hair this time, and just like Dean, Cas's eyes fluttered shut and seemed to drink up the touch. “Besides, you don't sound sure. You have to want it like anything to do something like that to yourself, not just go along with what other people want. I think you should keep your options open. Being a girl in a world without many girls might be a challenge. This baby's a girl, and if by some miracle we do get out, I have no intention of raising her as some kind of painted porcelain doll to be put on display. They don't own me, they don't own her, and they don't own you. Got it?”

“Yes, Miss Mary,” Cas replied wearily, and Mary smiled and stroked her forehead.

“How do you know the baby's a girl?” asked Dean.

“They've all been girls,” Mary said, with an edge in her voice. “Need more breeders, after all.” The way she said it, Dean realized he wasn't the only one who'd been forced to do horrible things. He had only been captured for a month, Mom had been trapped _eight years._

“What about Dean's surgery?” Cas suddenly said from the floor. “They were going to put you on the schedule sometime in the next couple of weeks.”

“I'm _fine,_ Cas,” Dean hissed, glaring at her. Why did she have to bring that up?

“You're not fine. You're still in pain all the time. If we leave now, you probably won't get the treatment you need.”

“ _What_ surgery?” Mary cut in, her voice lethal.

There was a long pause in which Dean would have been happy to sink into the floor and die, before Cas spoke up. “Sphincterotomy for anal fissure.”

Mary let out a noise that sounded like an angry steam train. Obviously she knew what that meant. Dean couldn't meet her eye, but risked a sideways glance at her face. There wasn't the pity that he expected, or weepy sorrow, but pure pent-up undiluted rage. Mom was _pissed._

“We're leaving tomorrow,” Mary declared. “No more of this fucking bullshit. I'm not letting them touch either one of you again.”

Both Dean and Cas just looked at each other, as Dean struggled to process that his sainted mother just swore in front of a couple of kids. “Do you have a plan?” he finally ventured. He had his own plans, but Mom's were probably better. Dean was relieved she didn't ask for the bloody details about why he needed surgery. Move on, move forward, don't slip, don't look back, never cry.

“I have an idea. Kinda the same way you got in here, actually. But right now, you need tell me everything about what you've seen outside this building. The guards, the fence, gates, doors, where the cars are. Cassie, I need to know what you saw this morning outside the perimeter. _Everything,_ boys _._ ”

* * * * *

The plan, shaky as it was, had to be put in motion by the next evening. Dean was raring to go even on Tuesday night, but Mary insisted Cas get some sleep and recover, and also that the two of them pay attention to certain details of security and report back to her the next day. That gave them one more night in the dorm, twisted together in the tiny bed for possibly the last time. Cas was exhausted while Dean was jumpy and full of energy, so right after lights out he slowly stripped and kissed her as she drifted off, while he rehearsed the plan over and over in his mind.

“Last night ever,” Cas murmured. Her head lolled on Dean's chest – over a T-shirt of course – while Dean stroked her neck and stared at the bunk slats above them.

“Shh, go sleep. It'll work. She promised,” he whispered.

“Your mom is nice. She didn't have to include me.”

“Well, yeah.” Weren't all moms nice? It was, like, part of their job description. Half the reason Dean suspected Nancy wasn't in Building Three was because she was probably poisonous to her young. “It's more likely to work with the two of us together anyway.”

“I can't remember what my parents looked like anymore. I don't have a picture. If my mom were in Three I don't think I'd recognize her. But I remember when they died. Sometimes I think I'm a terrible person.”

“You're, like, the opposite of terrible. I wouldn't love you if you were terrible. Go to sleep, Cas.”

Her arms tightened around him at the waist at the unconscious words, and then she drifted off to sleep.

* * * * *

The next day Dean dragged himself to class, trying not to drift off during lectures on such engaging topics as Comportment: How to Walk Like a Woman and Advanced French Kissing Techniques. Cas had most of the morning free, and used it to surreptitiously wander around and collect the supplies that Mary had requested. Some of it they'd keep for later that night, some Cas hid in her clothes to bring over to Mary that afternoon. She was due to meet Dr. Taylor for her fateful pre-op meeting that evening, after getting back from Building Three.

They marched over at the appropriate time, and Cas actually went through the motions of performing her duties one last time. To Dean's near-panic, Mary wasn't in either the restroom or her ward at three o'clock, and a worried Cas asked around. She showed up at four-thirty with another small group of women led down from Ultrasound Imaging, looking tired. Her long golden hair was mostly hidden in a handkerchief.

Dean made a beeline for the handicapped restroom, and both Cas and Mary showed up a few minutes later at intervals. Without a word Dean again threw himself into his mother's arms.

“Shh, honey, it's okay,” Mary soothed, although he wasn't actually crying. “I'm sorry you were worried.”

“Is the baby all right, Miss Mary?” Cas asked. “You've had two ultrasounds within a few days.”

“She's fine. The problem is that there's only one of her. They've routinely implanted three embryos the last few cycles, and two originally took.”

Cas nodded her head. “And now they're monitoring the remaining twin for placental issues and growth?”

“Yes. That's pretty good, Cassie, maybe you should think about going into medicine when we get out.”

Cas tipped her head as if to say, _If we get out._ But all she said was, “I brought the scissors, screwdriver, and flashlight. The other tools and clothes you asked for are back in Building One.”

“Any luck on a map?”

“All I could find was this in the library.” He gave her a few ripped out pages from the _Rand McNally World Atlas_ , one-page state maps of the northeast.

“Better than nothing. And the drugs? Those are ready to go?”

“Yes. I got them in the geriatric ward, actually. There's a cabinet with a broken lock.”

Mary weighed the shiny metal scissors in her hands as if it were a deadly weapon. “There are people here who would do anything for something sharp like this, in order to make short work of it,” she murmured. Then she pulled down her lovely hair – even longer than Dean remembered, as if it hadn't been cut in eight years – and mercilessly hacked it off. Dean let out a little gasp as one of her defining features dropped away. Then she carefully tied back the spiky ends into the handkerchief. again and collected every long strand into a twisted pile.

“You should think about cutting your hair tonight too, Cassie,” she said, pocketing the scissors somehow in her shirt. “Sorry, sweetie, but you need to go back to being a boy for at least a little bit, in order to blend in. Do you think you can do that?” Mary caressed Cas's worried face, and Cas shook her head “yes.”

“Good. Let's go over your part of the plan again.”

She made them repeat her instructions, with contingency plans, over and over again until they would recite it without hesitation. Only then did she let them go to head back to Building One.

* * * * *

Cas showed up for her meeting with Dr. Taylor promptly at 6:30, accompanied by Dean. Cas made sure she had the last appointment of the day. They made the excuse that Dean wanted to ask about his own symptoms, but also dropped hints that Addie was there mainly to be Cassie's support nurse for the night. The guards on the ground level shrugged and let them both in the lab.

Dean nervously looked around to see what technicians were still hanging around. This was the most risky part of the plan, and it could all be unraveled if a bunch of people chose to work late. But the lab was mostly deserted after dinner, so besides Taylor there was only a single other worker holed up in a far cubbie away from the exam room. As close to perfect as they were going to get.

“So, Cassie, ready for the big change?” Dr. Taylor told her cheerfully. “You'll look exactly like a real-fem by the time Dr. Doyle is done with you. Tonight, though, we've got to prep your bowels a little thoroughly than you're used to. You drink this entire bottle down and...”

Taylor droned on a bit with his instructions as Cas meekly nodded along. Behind him, Dean reached down into his clothes and pulled out the five syringes they had made up and taped to the inside of his skirt. Extras, in case more workers were in the lab. On impulse Dean decided to stab Taylor with two of them for good measure. Granted that might kill him for all Dean knew, but at that moment he didn't fucking care.

“WHAT THE FU...” Taylor turned and lunged for Dean just as the needles went in, but Dean gave him the hardest kick possible to the groin for extra incapacitation. Taylor fell to the ground with an _oompf._ His clutching of his nether regions didn't last long as the sedation quickly knocked him out.

“You didn't have to get him with two,” Cas commented. “Now he might stop breathing.”

“Really don't care if the rapist mad scientist dies, Cas. Check on that other guy, quick, while I get his clothes off.”

Dean pulled a roll of duct-tape out from under his skirt – he had to admit, those billowy things were good for hiding shit – and stuffed and gagged the good doctor's mouth, in case he woke up early. Then he stripped him down to his underwear, folding the scrubs and lab coat and pushing them down his shirt around his stomach. Then he bound Taylor's arms and feet, just as Cas came back in and rummaged through the cabinets for the sterile packs and scalpels.

“Here, keep these for us later,” Cas said, handing over some of the supplies. She popped open a scalpel blade and felt Taylor's wrist for the tell-tale chip. “This would have been easier if we did this before taping up his wrists.”

“Not taking any chances. Guy's got like eighty pounds on us, if he wakes up we're toast. Just gouge it out, don't get all fussy about whether you hurt his arm or not.”

“Well, I need to be careful not to damage the chip. He's had it awhile, it's really embedded in there.”

Dean stared at Taylor's unconscious form as Cas worked. Even though Taylor hadn't been the one on the bus, somehow he came to symbolize in Dean's mind every horrible mutilation and humiliation he had experienced over the past five weeks. The slim possibility of dying in a closet wasn't good enough, he decided. If Taylor woke up, he deserved to _pay._

Dean got another blade out of the cabinet and yanked down Taylor's underwear.

“What are you doing?” Cas asked.

“Exactly what he did to us.”

Cas briefly glanced at Taylor's exposed cock and balls before shrugging and turning her attention back to the chip. Dean grinned; god, did he _love_ Cas.

They both finished up, washed up and tossed all incriminating bloody evidence deep in the garage can. Dean ransacked Taylor's pockets to find his wallet and laminated picture ID – the latter seemingly useless, but Mary planned to have it on, flipped around, to look more like an employee. The two of them then dragged the sandbag of a body to a janitor closet. Dean had him pretty well immobilized, so even after the sedation wore off, he wouldn't be able to struggle or make noise too much. One quick check around the corner on the oblivious lab tech and they ran out of the med offices towards the guard station.

“Hey, that laxative stuff is working fast,” Dean told them, while Cas faked a moan and doubled over. “Can I get her up to the bathroom upstairs, like, now?”

The guard wrinkled his nose and waved them away.

Instead of heading to their dorm level, they went straight for the upper floors, near the roof access. In the next abandoned classroom they retreated to an unexposed corner to make preparations, and wait for darkness.

“What if that lab tech comes looking for Dr. Taylor, and asks the guards if he's left already?” Cas asked, while stripping off her clothes. She'd hidden the getaway bag of pilfered supplies in the room, and pulled out some dingy jeans and flannel, which Dean eagerly lunging at.

“Shh, we can't cover everything. Gotta have a little good luck after all this bad luck, right? Hey, where'd you get these clothes?”

“Last week's shipment of boys. I, uh, assisted with the disposal of their male clothes.”

“Ah, so helpful, Cassie. Too bad we can't burn this fucking place to the ground.”

Cas wiped off her make-up, and between that and the baggy clothes, she almost looked like a boy again. Dean's whole soul flooded with relief as he removed his costumey garments, and he felt like himself for the first time in weeks.

Only the hair was left on Cas. She silently handed some small surgical scissors to Dean. “Can you do it for me?”

“You sure?”

“It's just hair, Dean. If I like it long, I can always grow it back.”

Dean gave her a very neat trim.

When they were done they stood there staring at each other. “You look more like a boy than I thought you would,” Dean said.

“Is that bad?” Cas asked softly.

Dean tipped his head, considering it. Then he leaned forward and gently met her lips. Slowly, savoring it. “You kiss the same, I'd say no,” he murmured after they broke off.

Cas tentatively smiled. “I look the same as everyone out there now. Before going out of the perimeter the other day, I'd sort of forgotten. Do you think your mom knows we're, uh, together?” She blinked a moment, then added, “We are together, right?”

Dean laughed at that. “Yeah, Cas, I think when you take someone home to live with you, you're together. I don't know if Dad will be all that thrilled, but Mom seems to like you. Don't ask, don't tell, unless they ask, maybe?”

“Would your father prefer me as a girl or boy?”

“He might be weirded out either way. There's no girls out there in the countryside, Cas, no faux-fems either. I don't know who Dad expected us to date, if he ever thought about it. Nobody ever talked about it. But show up with me and Mom and he'll forgive a lot. We'll figure it out.”

Cas nodded, apparently putting aside her fears for the moment. “We should do the chips.”

“Oh, goody, again. My favorite part.”

“I'll be careful with your arm.”

She excised the chips with precision, taking her time even though it didn't matter if the chips were damaged. Dean helped do her own. “Officially illegal now, bye-bye pariah Class IV. What should we do with these?”

Cas threw them down an old sink.

They huddled together for hours until the sun went down, nervously twitching at any noise in the hallway. The timing of the last phase of their escape was precise: Get to the research entrance of Building Three at nine, just as the compound darkened up. That gave them an hour to breech the perimeter before lights out in Cas and Dean's dorm. Dean suggested waiting until after eleven, but Mary thought that upped the likelihood that Taylor would be discovered, plus exiting cars were less conspicuous at nine than eleven.

At eight-fifty they crept over to the next room, making their way without the flashlights as long as possible. And instead of climbing up, to the roof, for the first time they went down. At the second level Dean pulled a couple of hefty rocks out of the bag.

“Let's see how good my aim is. Here we go.” And he chucked the rock at the camera at the base of the stairs. “Ha! Got it in one.”

“It's still angled to the left, we'll have to go around some,” Cas said. “But the bottom of the stairs looks good.”

The sun was just sinking below the horizon at that point, but an afterglow still slightly illuminated the buildings. They stole around the old high school and took the long way around the nefarious research Building Two before approaching Three. The research entrance was well-lit with cameras, so they waited until the area seemed deserted and approached calmly, hoping for the best. Just outside the range of the camera aimed at the door, Dean repeated his rock trick.

“This'd be easier with a shotgun,” he muttered. “Don't know if a broken camera is better than just showing up, but I'm following the plan.”

He got it on the second try, and now they sprinted, racing against the clock. Cas zapped Taylor's chip against the sensor pad, and it obediently clicked open. Mary would be waiting for them at precisely nine at the top of the second floor fire escape. If she wasn't there, if they caught her, Mary had instructed them to run like hell for the fence.

But she was there. Wearing janitor boots instead of slippers and with her short hair slicked back like a dude. A few blood splatters speckled her tunic. Dean didn't want to ask how she got past the guard station to get to the back of the doctor offices.

“The chip,” she said, even as they were running back down the stairs. Cas handed it off, and they were back out the door and in the shadows within two minutes of knocking the camera out of place.

Over by the employee parking lot, they crouched between cars. “Clothes?” Mary whispered. “Now the hard part, fooling the guards on the way out. If this doesn't work, I'm gunning it at the gate, so hold on.” She threw on too-large scrubs and the lab coat. Truthfully Dean thought she still looked like, well, Mom, but maybe at a cursory glance it would work.

“Miss Mary?” said Cas. “We don't have keys to any of these cars. Maybe we should have gotten Dr. Taylor's.”

“No time, plus you don't know which car is his. Somebody's bound to have left their doors open, because who's going to steal a car _inside_ a military facility?” The third vehicle Mary tried clicked open, and she grinned at their astonished faces. “Ah, a '78 Chevy, perfect. Screwdriver and flashlight, Cassie.”

In less than thirty seconds, Mary had the panel open on the steering column and the car hotwired up. “And they say marrying John Winchester was good for nothing,” she muttered triumphantly. Mary popped the trunk and bade them into it. “Okay, boys, you've got the crowbar?”

“All I could find was a piece of pipe and a small hammer,” Cas whispered.

“Fine, that'll do. That's in case you need to get out of there on your own. Rip off the cover and unlatch the lock from underneath. Do not make any noise. If I get caught, I want you to wait until it's quiet and then _run._ Don't try to help me, don't try to fight, just get into town as fast as possible. Got it?”

They both nodded. Smashed together in the trunk, Dean clutched Cas's hand. If Mary noticed, she didn't comment on it.

The car pulled out of the lot and up to the side gate right near Building Six. This was the one used by civilians coming in visit kids “practicing” their skills, and also used by Paley the previous day. Cas had told her that the area immediately surrounding the compound was an abandoned industrial park on the edge of a desolate suburban area, but that the Pittsburgh proper was only a few miles to the southeast, based on the visible skyline.

In the trunk, Dean and Cas could hear the engine idle as Mary pulled up to the scan booth. Dean held his breath.

“Nice night,” a muffled voice said. Garbled, they couldn't tell if it was Mary or not.

“Yeah, long day,” someone replied, nonchalantly. Definitely Mary, although her voice sounded weird. Lower than normal. But then the squeaky gate rolled open without guard comment, and the car moved again.

Dean didn't dare do anything but squeeze Cas's hand for several minutes. The car seemed to be zooming fast along a highway; Mary didn't stop driving for what felt like ages. At last she pulled over and popped the trunk for them to get out. Dean and Cas both clambered out of the cramped trunk into the darkness, squinting at what looked like the back of a sleepy motel parking lot.

“Are we stopping for the night?” Cas whispered.

“No. We need a new car, or at least new plates. Then I want you two to come up and we'll strategize where to go next while we put Pittsburgh as far behind us as possible.” She glanced down at herself, still decked out in scrubs and a lab coat. “Damn, I wish I had less conspicuous clothes.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Mary,” Cas said. “I wasn't looking for adult clothes when I put ours aside. I might have been able to find a jacket or something with a little more time.”

“Don't worry, honey, we'll manage. I'll at least ditch the lab coat. And you should call me Mary, at least when we're not in earshot with anyone.”

“I thought of something,” Dean said, interrupting them. “For what to do, I mean. Dad made me and Sam memorize a number. In case of emergencies, or if we got lost, he used to say. This is the same as being lost, right?”

“Lost. Right,” Mary said, shaking her head. “It's probably one of John's old buddies, someone who can get ahold of him. He would leave a trail of breadcrumbs in case I ever got out. And Ellen, too, you haven't seen your aunt Ellen in awhile, right?”

Dean shook his head. He barely remembered Ellen, but he'd seen her after Mom disappeared.

“I don't know why your Dad just didn't tell you what was going on, but not going to worry about it now.”

“So, he _knew?”_ Dean asked. “He knew you were alive all along?”

“Well, yeah, he was there when they took me. So were you, honey, but you don't remember. Thank God for small favors.”

There was a payphone just down the street as a gas station. It was a little too well lit for Mary's taste, but she declared they should risk it. She scrounged a quarter from the dash of the car and the three of them walked down, trying to stay off the road and out of the street lights.

Dean and Mary both listened in as Dean dialed the number. Dad had really burned it into his and Sam's heads a few times over the years, so he hoped it went somewhere. And indeed it did: Dad's familiar deep voice was recorded on the other end. “This is John,” was all it said, then _beep._

Mary yanked the receiver out of Dean's hands. “John, this is Mary,” she said, her voice shaking. “I have Dean. Change the message on the answering service so we know where to go.” And she hung up.

They walked backed to the stolen car in a daze. Cas climbed in the backseat while Dean hopped up front. But once they were in, instead of stealing some license plates or starting the car back up, Mary finally broke down. She pulled Dean to her and squeezed him so tight he could barely breathe. “We did it, we did it, we did it,” she repeated. “I can't believe I finally get to see you again.”

And there, wrapped up in his mother's arms, Dean too finally let go enough to cry.

 


	6. Epilogue: Two Years Later

 Dean grabbed Cas's hand, to drag her away from the party to their secret clearing in the field. This late in the evening the alcove they had made in the wheat would be shaded by the old oak tree, and the edge of the day's summer heat finally beginning to wear off. Ostensibly they were out to check on and secure the animals before night fell, but the most of the gathering knew what they were really after. Mary gave him a wink as they edged away from the group; John, holding a wiggling toddler Jo, briefly frowned at their public handholding but was soothed by Mary's soft hand on his shoulder. Dean suspected Mary had been quietly working on him about it, to convince him to see the positive in the situation. Dean had found someone to love and be loved back, and wasn't that good enough in a broken world, when you had to take what you could get? Or so their murmuring up in the loft late at night indicated. The walls of the reclaimed farmhouse they all lived in were thin.

Dean was fourteen now, and Cas fifteen. They were both sprouting up like saplings, willowy and thin, a legacy of the starvation conditions the year before. It took months to decide when – or, with Ellen likely imprisoned in another camp, whether – to go across the border, and where exactly to go. It quickly became clear staying in New Federal territory was untenable – none of the kids could go to school, Mary increasingly couldn't disguise herself as a man, and they had a brand new baby girl on the way who couldn't be hidden forever. But where to go? California and Oregon were half a continent away, too far to travel undetected; the border with Texas was practically a war zone, and Quebec had a hostile reputation to outsiders. Ontario seemed the best bet. There was a rumor that Ottawa was offering 50 acre farms to any family immigrating with a viable real-fem. A sound strategy for poaching population off its neighbors, but it was also possible that it could be another trap.

But the snow began before this decision was made, and they had to hole up over the miserable winter in a dilapidated house deep in the rolling hills of upstate New York. John was the only one of the lot of them that could move freely as an unchipped male adult, so he trudged miles into town every day, looked for odd jobs. He couldn't point to his boys as a reason for needing a job, so the townsmen treated him as another shiftless, untrustworthy drifter. There was no money for food, or fuel, or illicit medical care for the hidden pregnant lady. Surgery for Dean was out of the question, although over time the chronic pain was reduced to an ache whenever he went to the bathroom. Ironically, Dean thought the lack of food may have helped with that, for they survived on little more than apples collected in an old orchard next to the house, cheap beans and flour, and the occasional deer John managed to hunt.

The baby arrived in December, aided by Sam and Cas who read up from stolen obstetric textbooks and acted as midwives. As Mary predicted she was a girl, with dark skin and curly hair and curiously blue eyes; basically, the kid looked nothing like any of them. They dubbed her Jo anyway, after Dean's long lost baby cousin, and also a conveniently gender-ambiguous name. Despite the fact that she was of no blood relation to any of them, and cried enough to give them away if any neighbors happened by, everyone rallied to the baby. She was a symbol that world wasn't completed beaten down and damaged, and that even in the most fucked-up world there is good that can happen.

So in April, when the rivers and mountains finally began to thaw, two adults and four kids were bundled up with every scrap of clothing on their backs, the baby tied to Mary's breast in a makeshift sling, and they made a run for the St. Lawrence. The banks of the icy river were more heavily guarded than John anticipated and frequently fenced off – an oddly hopeful sign, for why would the N.F. guard their border so jealously if other folks weren't trying to escape? They used every last dime to bribe a fisherman to ferry them across near Morristown, and landed in Brockville, Ontario as penniless refugees.

That had been over a year ago – and exactly one year ago since getting the house and land, which is why they were celebrating. The free acreage rumor turned out to not be too far off the mark, for the government was subsidizing both female children and farm training, in an effort to make the region self-sustaining. Thus little baby Jo ended up the biggest moneymaker of any of them. John turned out to be better at repairing old machinery than actual farming, while Mary was actually the mean wielder of a combine. So they settled near other people who knew better what they were doing, with only a few acres to work on.

On that warm July day, it was tough for Dean to care about any of that old painful history. Grow up strong, live your life, don't look back were his teenage mottoes. The best thing about Ontario as far as Dean was concerned – besides the basics, like food, and education for smarties Sam and Cas, and the freedom to leave the house without being hunted as a runaway slave – was the fact that as minors, they were eligible for some basic health care. Which in Dean and Cas's cases meant hormone therapy to continue pubertal development. Dean practically fell over himself offering his arm for the testosterone patch, which would eventually reverse many of the effects of the shots he'd received a year prior. Not everything, for the hated breasts remained, but he'd get taller and bulkier and his voice would probably get lower. All in all, enough to make Dean happier with his body, at least so he no longer had the urge the slash his so-called pretty face.

Cas, on the other hand, had a harder time of it. Generally he went with being a boy now, since most of the other kids at school were boys, and John seemed more at ease with him as a boy. The whole concept of the faux-fems wasn't nearly as common up north; most everybody, including the female survivors, dressed and acted the same, and if people had relationships in different configurations, it was nobody's business but their own. Cas and Dean were both shocked to discover two of their classmates in middle school were real-fems, but they couldn't tell at all by their appearance alone. So Cas took a cue from them, and dressed in the same baggy sweatshirts and jeans as everyone else, and let the pronouns migrate back to “he.” Now everybody called him Cas instead of just Dean.

But the thing that only Dean, Mary and Cas's doctor knew, was that he'd replaced the estrogen implant with another one. Cas preferred all the gentle curves of this transformed body, and seemed to have no desire for muscle mass or broad shoulders or indeed to conform at all to what a “man” should look like, an attitude that mystified Dean. But even through his bafflement he secretly loved Cas's body too, loved the way it looked when he got their clothes off, the soft give of it under his hands, the way she thoroughly enjoyed her own form and Dean's reaction to it. On the occasions they could sneak away and clothes did come off, Dean's mind always slid back to “she.” Like it was a secret part of her that she reserved for just herself and him. Dean couldn't tell if this was something to feel bad about or embrace. Maybe so long as Cas didn't care what she was called, Dean shouldn't either.

Summertime was glorious because they could get away often, despite all the work needing to be done around the property. And even though Dean was loath to admit that anything that came out of Miss Nancy's mouth was accurate, he had been ridiculously horny since getting back on the T. Like, multiple-jackoffs-a-day horny, although not much came out. Maybe the dose was wrong or something, but after a year believing he'd never come again, no way was Dean going to look that gift horse in the mouth and ask Dad or the doc if that was weird or normal. Cas thought it _was_ normal, and Dean usually trusted her opinion, but she had nine months of propaganda in her head rattling on about how men could never be sexually satisfied, so there was that.

They ran holding hands to the spot under the tree with their secret stash of blankets to spread out on the ground. Despite Dean being constantly wound up, this time it was Cas who was the impatient one, not even waiting to cover the ground before yanking him to her for a kiss. Dean loved it when Cas got like this, all pushy and desperate and obviously every bit as hot as a Dean, testosterone or no. They barely paused the making out to get their shirts off – Dean's too. Cas was the only one he let see him shirtless, and that was mainly because she's knew to ignore them completely. But under her shirt, Cas had a surprise.

“Oh my God, is that a lacy bra?' Dean panted, breaking off from her neck. “Where did you get that? I bet there's underwear too.”

“Thomas Kay had a whole trunk of stuff from his aunts or something,” Cas murmured as she unbuttoned his pants. “Do you like it?”

“If you like it then I like it. But you know, really the best thing about nice underwear” – he nuzzled down her chest and kissed between her breasts – “is taking it off.”

She pulled him down to the grass, ignoring their blanket stash only a few feet away, and kicked off the jeans. The panties didn't match, but they were frilly too and barely held in Cas's curled up cock.

“Off, off, off,” Dean chanted. “My God you are beautiful, ridiculous underwear and all.” He pulled her cock into his mouth even as he peeled the panties down. She groaned and arched up to meet him even as she shoved a hand on the back of his head. Cocksucking was still his specialty, even though Dean was fine with only one other person in the world ever knowing of that particular skill. Add it to the long list of things he'd never share with anyone else.

Then he noticed she had the plug in.

“I can't believe you still have that thing,” Dean laughed, as he pulled up. He'd seen it plenty of times before, but it always made him laugh a little that Paley's attempts to “train” her had only resulted in increasing her own pleasure. “Literally we walked miles with nothing but the clothes on our backs, and you smuggle in the dildo.”

“It feels good, Dean.”

“I know, baby, I've heard this story before.” He slid it out a scant inch before pushing it back inside, at an upwards angle to hit in just the right place. Cas's eyes rolled up and she bucked, encouraging more.

“You could take it out, and come ins...”

“No,” Dean interrupted. “I can't, Cas, I'm sorry. I know you say that you'd like it, but I just can't.” Sometimes it was tempting as hell to push into her, feel that tightness sliding up and down his painfully aroused cock, especially with her all prepped and relaxed like that. But Dean couldn't get over it. He couldn't get beyond his own memories of the creaking below him while he clutched the sheets and tried not to scream, or of her glassy expression as she buried the horror of what was being done to her. Sometimes he flashed back to the blood, too, the one thing that seemed to haunt him the most from the bus. Cas could play with toys to her heart's content, but Dean couldn't contemplate anal. Ever.

Cas flipped around so their heads were level again. “Okay,” she said. “Can I climb on top of you? I still want to feel you all over me.”

Dean grunted approval. “Less asking, more doing, Cas.”

She smiled, that rare one that expressed relaxation and comfort, and rolled on top to ride him, teasing him with her legs and hand. Dean pulled her down with a groan so they were laying skin to skin, and curled his arms around Cas to give her the most searing kiss.

“How old you think we have to be before we can go off and live on our own?” Dean asked in her ear, when they broke off. “I want to touch you every day, not just when we can sneak off in the fields. Putting you in Jo's room is like the most effective cockblock ever. How long are we going to be treated like little kids?”

“When you're sixteen, maybe?” Cas said. “Mary will be sad if we move out so soon, though.”

“I'm not suggesting we move to the moon, but is a little privacy too much to ask? Like a cabin maybe? Could work on building a cabin.”

“Or, alternative suggestion, we could talk your parents about letting us furnish part of the basement. It's out of the way, nobody can hear us, and when we do move out that job is done. Be separate but also part of the family.”

“Excellent battle plan, General. Gives some flexibility if you decide to go off to school. _When_ we go away for you to go to school.”

“I won't necessarily do that, Dean. We have no money of our own. John and Mary probably want to save up for Sam to go. I've imposed on them enough.”

“Details, details. You're as smart as Sam, they'll figure it out.”

They laid there wrapped up in each other's arms for a minute, and enjoyed the summer breeze over their skin. When Dean did speak up again, it was barely above a whisper, just for her and nothing else in the universe to hear.

“So are you glad you came with me? No regrets?”

“That would have been a disaster,” Cas murmured back. “I'd rather starve with you than be alone again. No regrets.”

She lifted her head up to kiss him again, and Dean squeezed his arms around her bare back. Never again alone.

  



End file.
